My mother always taught me that if you are out and about after 3am nothing good come of it. She is right, as seen by many who observe the streets downtown between the hours of 3-5am. Fights break out, public urination, vomiting on the streets and far too often fatalities. When you mix alcohol, (cheap due to competing drink specials with all the bars downtown), loud music, and bad attitudes all it takes is a look to invoke violence. In my days as a DJ I don't recall the level of drugs, guns and people looking for trouble as we have now. It is indeed a different time, which calls for different action.
City Council recognized before my time that we had serious problems managing all of the bars downtown and hired a consultant named Peter Belmio. Mr. Belmio studied downtown nightlife and came up with many recommendations one of them - (no surprise) to shut down the after hours clubs. It needed to be done. Closing at 3am will not solve all the problems downtown but it is a step in the right direction.
All one has to do is talk to someone who parties at an after hours club to figure out why we needed to do this. They will tell you (if they trust you) of dancing, drug dealers in the clubs (who look like anyone else), fights and serious threats (club goers will not call the police over a threat, they will fight back). They go to carry on partying and continue the euphoric feeling alcohol gives you, instead of going home to sleep it off. If you take away the places to continue partying they will have to go home.
The by-law will be drafted for review at the January 28th meeting. There are other Canadian Cities we can model the by-law after Kitchener for one, however along with the by-law City Council asked for a report outlining an exemption policy to the mandatory closing. I am concerned about the exemptions, which I believe should be debated by council similar to the noise by-law exemptions where we allow events with entertainment to go past 10PM. Exemptions should be applied for, should be for special or a high end entertainment act (example Tommy Lee as a DJ), tickets should be sold in advance of the event and most important if any establishment applying for this exemption has any infractions within the past year (by-law or liquor) they are turned down automatically. I believe this will force the bars to be more responsible with managing not only their facilities but also their clientele.
I live downtown, I shop downtown and I play downtown. I love downtown and have seen it change for the worse. We need to take action to take back downtown and make it vibrant, safe and healthy like it was when I was a teen. Closing the bars at 3am is one step in changing downtown for the better.
13 comments:
Where are these shops that Coucilor Postma speaks of?
I too live downtown, and I have a very hard time finding anything to head downtown for, other than the occasional meal.
Year after year, downtown gets worse and worse. This Mayor and Council certainly haven't done anything to improve that. New Arena? Far eastside. Urban Village? Not in my lifetime. The list goes on and on.
Good for you Caroline Postma! The blogosphere is not such a bad place sometimes. Kudos for trying it out. I agree with you. Take away reasons for "hanging out" in the small hours and the next best option is going home or for that matter dispersing elsewhere. Either way we do something about the high concentration of these kids downtown. If establishments want to have the occasional exemption then let them. As long as they meet all criteria.
Close em down at three. Period.
Fantastic post Councillor Postma. Now you are getting the gist of it. I applaud your concerns and votes on this to close them down at 3am.
Now as for the downtown getting worse, I agree with you so I have but two questions.
Why has The City’s “Sustainable Downtown Plan” been put on hold until at least 2010? Our donwtown CANNOT wait that long!
Why weren't the RFP's sent out with regards to the Urban Village BEFORE anything was even said about the UofW possibly coming downtown? As told to me by your fellow councillors there was interest by developers but they too waited for the RFP to be sent. Why hasn't it be done so?
Thanks for your time and I am glad you chose to talk directly with bloggers and their readers instead of shutting us out.
The Mayor and delegates from various entertainment venues told us that this issue was too complex and they hinted that drugs, guns and gangs are probably at the core of the problem. I am a mechanic and I can say this from experience. If you modify an engine to get better performance the best way to approach it is to make one change at a time. This way you can guage wether or not that change has done what was intended. If it doesn't then you reverse it and start over with something else. If you approach the task by making several changes at once and the outcome is poor then you have no easy way of knowing which change is at fault. This always turns out to be very costly. This is what I think the problem is with after hours bars. As soon as we permitted them to stay open longer we started to see more violence. This change created a popular and workable forum for those dealing in drugs, guns and gangs. Once they rooted downtown all hours of operation for them became fair game. The solution then is to reverse the after hours change and start over with something different. Councillor Postma is onto something by suggesting the bars go back to closing at 3:00 A.M. with very measured rules for exemptions. She gets my vote on this one.
I agree. Special exemptions should be limited. Council will need to take control of the exemption process.This way the people have a say in the matter. If it is handle by an outside committee or the DWBIA then the people loose their voice.
Good Post Councilor.
I agree with many of the comments here. The proper solution is only as difficult as you want to make it. There is definately cause and effect to downtown Windsor's problem. Strip away the layers until the root cause is revealed. In this case I think a 3:00 A.M. closing with strict exceptions will quell the demon.
BLOGPOWER!!!
Well, well, well...Caroline is using BLOGs now to get her point across. I guess the media isn't giving her the publicity she wants so she tries to circumvent them by talking directly to Windsorites on the BLOGs.
We know she reads BLOGs to get all of her border information.
Clearly the BLOGs and Windsor Star forums have rattled our politicians since now they know what people in Windsor really think about them. (Think she can get her buddy Councillor Brister to apologize to M.O.M. for his rudeness for telling him to "find a charity to which you might devote your time")
I can hardly wait for the Mayor to come and write here too.
Coun. Postma - Thank you for entering the MOM dialogue. I look forward to your posts in the future.
Ms. Postma didn't seek this blog out. I asked several bloggers if they wanted to post. Councillor Postma was the only one who accepted the opportunity. Our politicians might be a little weary and slow to come around but they will. The blogosphere is becoming a mainstream channel for sure. Good for you Councillor.
So the Box Office can now hire high-end DJ's spinning Hip-Hop from Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver and apply for a special permit to do so.
Doesn't solve the "after hours" problem now does it?
Curious as well as to what shops the councillor goes to downtown.
"They will tell you (if they trust you) of dancing, drug dealers in the clubs (who look like anyone else), fights and serious threats (club goers will not call the police over a threat, they will fight back)."
Clearly the councillor hasn't ventured into other bars downtown where drug use is common in the bathrooms.
And what about the bars that stay open after hours serving alcohol to "special" patrons. How do I know, I was in one once where we drank until 5 a.m. All they do is lock the door and take the alcohol outback out of sight.
To the last anonymous...
Precisely the councillor's point. This stuff goes on everywhere downtown. It is out of control. At the very least move em out earlier. Not giving them time to air out is irresponsible.
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