presumption and predictive sample sizes
a lot of folks like to blame downtown disorder on this being (i'm gonna quote my anonymous detractor here) "a college town and an urban center containing homeless shelters and a sizable, poor minority population", implying, if i read the code correctly, that downtown violence is presumed to be committed by college kids, homeless drug addicts and local gang bangers, and completely beyond the ken of people who haven't lived their whole lives here. (forgive me if i presume too much, but i hear this from so many people it gets tired very, very quickly). except i might offer into evidence rob mills' nice little piece on his blog tonight identifying the five disorderly guys urinating on everything from the middle of the street to church doors this past weekend as a small albeit fairly relevant sample size for making some observations. (yeah, the right there on the door to the st joseph the worker shrine).
see, the identities of the urinators don't match up with any of those demographics presumed by the folks who aren't down here at all, or the excuses mouthed by the license commission. (what do you know, or, maybe, don't know, but can't give credit to those of us who are actually out at these bars meeting the miscreants in person so as to know a bit about their backgrounds). in fact, they correspond perfectly with the characterizations offered by the superintendent of police at every downtown neighborhood, city council and license commission meeting i've attended. and they match exactly what i see myself when i'm out and about. we don't have a problem with college kids downtown. we do have a problem with homeless drug addicts committing petty crime and thefts and worse, but not particularly during the bar hours, but, rather, other times during the day. and the gang stuff, bad as it is, is happening out in the other neighborhoods, and generally not downtown where all the police are on weekends these days. but you don't have to take my word for it, you can start reading the police blotter, or getting out yourself.
anyway, the five cited are 33 and 34 year old residents of the upper and upper upper highlands, a 20 year old rochester new hampshire townie, a 24 year old littleton, ma townie, and a 26 year old dracut townie. i guess it's possible the 20 year old rochester boy matriculated somewhere nearby, but i'm gonna bet you he didn't. i wouldn't guess any of them are drug addicted, homeless, or members of a gang, either. nope, i'd predict for you that the five are, as most of the folks doing wrong downtown here, drunks from anywhere but here getting overserved at either hookslide kelly's, brian's ivy hall, the village smokehouse, or the bar that shall not be named lest i be accused of bias. in fact, i'll even retract that last bit completely, and exonerate our favorite downtown bar, and suggest that the locations of the five exposed penises and four urine streams would mostly likely indict four counts between hookslides and brians, and one for the smokehouse. (though i will observe for you the urine stains on the walkways aside of the leo roy garage and suggest that not everyone relieving themselves in public over the weekend was caught by the police, nor from just those three bars mentioned above).
good news, i guess, is that i didn't see any puke on the sidewalk this weekend. there were no broken windows or broken flower pots (that i know of) and the fetish kids were their own completely benign selves as they always are at the 'rock. melvern taylor and his fabulous meltones were fabulous, as they always are, over at the back page, which was standing room only on saturday night (and i'm glad to report in apparent full compliance with all fire codes given the quick and professional arrival and departure of three impeccably uniformed members of the department with their clipboard on one of their routine unannounced checks) and doing its usual land-office and downtown-detractor-denying business. (why is it so hard for some people to accept the fact that some folks actually like a decent place to see music downtown, in addition to all the rest of the choices on a saturday night, or any night for that matter?)
the superintendent of police and his captains and their men and women on the street with them have the stats from their arrests and their own two eyes each to tell the license commission and the city council where the problems are, who the problems are, and when the problems are. the downtown residents who are out on the street and in the bars see it too. now we just need the license commission to understand that nobody wants to put the bars out of business--just put the rules back into force, and make this the kind of place that *more* people want to patronize rather than less. it's good for the bar owners! it's good for the neighborhood! it's good for the city! and the residents here don't mind at all if they do.
it's the puke and the piss and the vandalism and the violence that have to go, and the bar practices that lead to it all via lax alcohol management and general irresponsibility. when there's something worth doing downtown, people like me and even people not like me are catching a few beers in the afternoon, (guinness upstairs at the old court at the book event), eating dinner at a downtown restaurant, (viet-thai rocks, though others i know went for the chili at the brush art gallery soiree), and then heading out for an evening on the town. i dropped my usual pile of payday cash happily on the counter at all of these places, getting value for my money and treated well in a safe and respectful environment. the whole thing cost me a fraction of what i'd have to pay for any one of the three alone in other nearby cities, and that's a wonderful thing. i don't want that to change.
it's just a bit less of the puke and the piss and the vandalism and the violence from overserved drunks with which we could do. it's not asking alot.
see, the identities of the urinators don't match up with any of those demographics presumed by the folks who aren't down here at all, or the excuses mouthed by the license commission. (what do you know, or, maybe, don't know, but can't give credit to those of us who are actually out at these bars meeting the miscreants in person so as to know a bit about their backgrounds). in fact, they correspond perfectly with the characterizations offered by the superintendent of police at every downtown neighborhood, city council and license commission meeting i've attended. and they match exactly what i see myself when i'm out and about. we don't have a problem with college kids downtown. we do have a problem with homeless drug addicts committing petty crime and thefts and worse, but not particularly during the bar hours, but, rather, other times during the day. and the gang stuff, bad as it is, is happening out in the other neighborhoods, and generally not downtown where all the police are on weekends these days. but you don't have to take my word for it, you can start reading the police blotter, or getting out yourself.
anyway, the five cited are 33 and 34 year old residents of the upper and upper upper highlands, a 20 year old rochester new hampshire townie, a 24 year old littleton, ma townie, and a 26 year old dracut townie. i guess it's possible the 20 year old rochester boy matriculated somewhere nearby, but i'm gonna bet you he didn't. i wouldn't guess any of them are drug addicted, homeless, or members of a gang, either. nope, i'd predict for you that the five are, as most of the folks doing wrong downtown here, drunks from anywhere but here getting overserved at either hookslide kelly's, brian's ivy hall, the village smokehouse, or the bar that shall not be named lest i be accused of bias. in fact, i'll even retract that last bit completely, and exonerate our favorite downtown bar, and suggest that the locations of the five exposed penises and four urine streams would mostly likely indict four counts between hookslides and brians, and one for the smokehouse. (though i will observe for you the urine stains on the walkways aside of the leo roy garage and suggest that not everyone relieving themselves in public over the weekend was caught by the police, nor from just those three bars mentioned above).
good news, i guess, is that i didn't see any puke on the sidewalk this weekend. there were no broken windows or broken flower pots (that i know of) and the fetish kids were their own completely benign selves as they always are at the 'rock. melvern taylor and his fabulous meltones were fabulous, as they always are, over at the back page, which was standing room only on saturday night (and i'm glad to report in apparent full compliance with all fire codes given the quick and professional arrival and departure of three impeccably uniformed members of the department with their clipboard on one of their routine unannounced checks) and doing its usual land-office and downtown-detractor-denying business. (why is it so hard for some people to accept the fact that some folks actually like a decent place to see music downtown, in addition to all the rest of the choices on a saturday night, or any night for that matter?)
the superintendent of police and his captains and their men and women on the street with them have the stats from their arrests and their own two eyes each to tell the license commission and the city council where the problems are, who the problems are, and when the problems are. the downtown residents who are out on the street and in the bars see it too. now we just need the license commission to understand that nobody wants to put the bars out of business--just put the rules back into force, and make this the kind of place that *more* people want to patronize rather than less. it's good for the bar owners! it's good for the neighborhood! it's good for the city! and the residents here don't mind at all if they do.
it's the puke and the piss and the vandalism and the violence that have to go, and the bar practices that lead to it all via lax alcohol management and general irresponsibility. when there's something worth doing downtown, people like me and even people not like me are catching a few beers in the afternoon, (guinness upstairs at the old court at the book event), eating dinner at a downtown restaurant, (viet-thai rocks, though others i know went for the chili at the brush art gallery soiree), and then heading out for an evening on the town. i dropped my usual pile of payday cash happily on the counter at all of these places, getting value for my money and treated well in a safe and respectful environment. the whole thing cost me a fraction of what i'd have to pay for any one of the three alone in other nearby cities, and that's a wonderful thing. i don't want that to change.
it's just a bit less of the puke and the piss and the vandalism and the violence from overserved drunks with which we could do. it's not asking alot.
posted by kad barma at 12:10 AM
4 Comments:
Again, your detractor wholeheartedly agrees with your assessment of the pissers and pukers being comprised mostly of out of town idiots playing a "road game" in Lowell and not caring what they leave behind.
However, you continue to dodge and deflect from what the facts I called you out on. My main point was you unfairly called out one bar that ranks far down the list of problem bars in the city. At one time, the Shamrock was crowded enough to be the number one cause of downtown rowdiness. That hasn't been the case in years. The most crowded bars are the ones where most of the problems originate, which is only natural.
As even you yourself correctly pointed out, the location of the bladder control problem children points to location other than the number one target of your venom.
But to the more recent point you try to paint me as some sort of racist on, I was referring specifically to the stabbing near the John Street garage. Go back and examine the news accounts again. Brawl, stabbing victim and his friends never call for help. He shows up at hospital yet when authorities question him about what happens, he clams up.
Is that the behavior of an out of town reveler who just happened to get a little lubed up and in a brawl, or is that the behavior of someone who well knows his attackers and the reason for the stabbing, very likely by a gang member, therefore does not want to start singing because he fears another attack or because he himself might have some gang association or criminal background and does not desire the attention?
You're a wise man KB, you tell me what you think is more likely in that most recent stabbing.
Ok, point given: A stabbing of suspicious circumstances. I'm not sure we should conclude the gangs are behind what ails us even so, but is that your point? The Shamrock, per capita, in my experience, keeps up with BIH and Hookslides for bad patron behavior even in their decline, but we can leave them alone if you prefer. I used to sit out on the patio at Ole between sets when the music was playing there on Thursday nights, and I rarely saw the kind of crap coming from the line at BIH that I saw more often than not walking to and from past the BS on my way there. Part of the reason is that Dimitri has cops at his door, as does the crew at Hookslides. If we look at the stats of "trouble" attributed to those bars, it's immediately apparent that easily half the reports are people being denied entrance, not getting served there and then getting into something. I'll tell you that it's my experience that many of those folks use the Shamrock as a fallback destination, and now we have part of my reason not to leave them to slide, even while they aren't packing 500 knuckleheads in like their Merrimack Street competitors. Lowell is a destination drunk. I get asked for directions to the bars as I walk home after 1 by drunk kids in mom and dad's SUV, and that's not because they expect to be turned away. With the details at BIH and Hookslides, at least some of them are. I've never seen anyone turned away from the BS, but maybe you in your long experience can tell me differently.
I look at the numbers, like the comments on Dick Howe's surveillance camera blog entry, and note that the scanners had way way way too many fistfights inside BIH and Hookslides, so I'll write about that next. I'm not trying to write about anything but what I see and read.
Fair enough, though I'll also point out the owner of Ole was telling friends his business failed because diners were scared off by behavior of BIH patrons. To me, that sounds like bunk, as I thought he was overpriced and gave a horrible product and service for those lofty prices. If he were the only downtown resident or business person complaining about BIH I'd completely write him off, but since he's just one of many his complaints should count, even if his excuse making for a failed biz shouldn't.
I'd support a 1am closing, but by law it has to be mandatory and city wide, which brings us to the crux of the license commission problem. They can't punish EVERY bar in the city for the downtown rowdiness. That's why, while I think Bayliss' time has come and gone, I can't say the LC is totally negligent. They have to balance the needs of many, residents and biz owners alike, not to mention their political masters who desperately need to feed the monster and will give a liquor license to anybody who asks.
Those three thousand dollars licenses are the most important thing to them. Too bad they can't see those dollars are what ultimately fuels the fire, leading already struggling bar owners to face more competition, thereby pushing the envolope more and more to make up for lost revenue. In the end, those extra few liquor licences cost the city more in police overtime, downtown public property repairs and added promotional dollars to hide the evidence of the real downtown Lowell from those interested in buying property here.
I'm more sympathetic to the complaints from Ricardo's about their patrons being propositioned by would-be johns right on their doorstep than I am Ole blaming their miseries on the BIH waiting line. For one thing, the waiting line never got started at BIH until long after dining hours were past at Ole. And, as you apparently agree, the prices and service at Ole were so atrocious that they were going to fail anywhere downtown you put them, or put Brian's for that matter. A better business plan would have been to cater to those line-sitters and make a deal with Brian's to act as a waiting bar for the upstairs (much as it used to be),, but, hey, let's not get crazy here.
I'm not suggesting the 1am door close ought to be a license requirement or anything about which the commissioners need to concern themselves. That's a neighborhood partnership policy that simply makes sense for everyone, since it also saves the bars from having to deal with the late-arriving miscreants.
I am saying that repeated underage patron offenses MUST be sanctioned. I'm also saying that even the things you would prefer to excuse from the BS be taken seriously and at the very least used as a basis to call owners in for a discussion. If every bar in the city (as you tell me, there are plenty of others) knows that beer pong is both against the rules AND get them called on the carpet, they'll stop making Lowell so much of a drunk bar destination, and more of a better place for more people to enjoy. I've played my share of that game (though not the recent incarnation--our version had fewer cups and more drinking) but we never needed that kind of excuse in a bar--it was a dining room table game late at parties, as it should remain. Bars are public spaces and demand better public behavior. Entertainment licenses should not be granted that adversely affect neighboring businesses, let alone sensitive neighbors. BIH was led to make significant changes to their noise profile, and everyone, even Brian's, agrees it's a good thing. The BS PA speakers don't need to be polluting the air at Fortunato's and Fuze, they just don't. Same way that the live music PA at Fortunato's was shut down by the folks at the BS complaining to the police about those. Dharma Buns got squeezed by complaints from Centro for less. (Their noise was indoors).
There's enough missed opportunities to enforce that I would still suggest the commissioners are not doing their part in all of this. Maybe Tom thinks the lack of fighting arrests this past weekend are on the cops. (Though, in my experience they're pretty active and I wouldn't fault them for how they're doing their jobs in the least).
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