Council ponders rolling back closing times from 3 a.m. to 2 a.m.
Frances Bula
Sun
‘…the police department have long been asking for a return to Sleepy Hollow…? John Teti Chair of a group seeking later closing times
Vancouver bar owners are launching a strong offensive in preparation for a council decision next week on whether to roll back bar closing times to 2 a.m., saying police just want a return to a Sleepy Hollow city.
In a confidential letter to Mayor Larry Campbell, the owners also say police should focus more on “life safety rather than lifestyle concerns.”
The charges are in response to an extremely negative evaluation by police of the late-night bar closing times the COPE council initiated 18 months ago.
“While the police department have long been asking for a return to Sleepy Hollow, we suggest that you maintain your vision of a progressive city with a vibrant and responsible nightlife,” the owners’ letter says.
In a report going to council Nov. 18, Deputy Chief Bob Rich, who supports returning to a 2 a.m. closing, states bluntly:
“It is my opinion that there are now too many liquor seats in too small an area and we have reached a tipping point where public safety is going to remain an issue. This has become the place to be in the Lower Mainland for a certain type of patron that welcomes disorder and also for members of crime groups who are willing to engage in open street violence.”
A memo from the police department’s liquor co-ordinator is equally scathing.
“The experiment has not been a success from a public safety point of view, with increased violent crime in the test area,” wrote Pam Ruschke, who said the benefits promised by the later closing hours — a decrease in illegal drinking places, a trickle-out at closing time, and a reduction in noise and disorder — have not been realized.
City staff, however, are not taking a position on the issue — leaving it up to council to decide. But if the decision is to continue with 3 a.m. closings after the trial period ends Dec. 31, they say the city should obtain the legal right to roll back the hours of establishments that cause problems.
In its letter to Campbell, the owners’ group — Barwatch — says Ruschke’s memo “contains wholesale inaccuracies and, frankly, does not represent in the least the reality of the situation downtown on Friday and Saturday nights.”
The letter, signed by John Teti, the chair of the 25-member group of bars that have been allowed to stay open past the standard closing hours, rebuts Ruschke’s assessments point by point, saying:
– The number of illegal drinking places — “firetraps run with complete immunity to the law” — has been reduced from 27 to almost nothing.
– Gun use is not increasing downtown because of bar closing hours, but because of the increase in the drug trade.
– The nightly reports provided by the private security company the bars have hired indicate no increase in disorderly behaviour outside the norm for a weekend downtown.
Besides deciding on whether to roll back to a 2 a.m. closing, councillors will also have to make a decision at some point about who should pay the $900,000-a-year bill that police say is a direct cost of the late-night closings.
For the past year, bar owners have been paying a kind of surtax, based on the number of seats in their establishments, to cover the extra cost of policing. That has generated $700,000.
Teti said owners have been pressing to have this fee eliminated. “It isn’t really right we should be paying a user fee to the police,” he said.
© The Vancouver Sun 2004