There is a thin line between due diligence and overreaction. For the most part I think public officials are being cautious in their approach since the tragic murder a week ago this past Saturday.
While an urgency ordinance seemed a bit extreme, it is basically pushing the pause button while authorities can get a better sense of what happened and what, if anything, we can do about it.
Council is holding a 7:30 am meeting tomorrow, which on the surface seems a bit much. However, the context is that the council was actually originally holding the meeting to address another issue, the need to approve the subcontractor substitution for the Water Quality Improvement Pipeline Project.
The council was on call for this meeting, but was unable to coordinate their schedules for a normal meeting time. Moreover, with Lucas Frerichs on vacation (he will be participating via Skype from Europe) and the need for four votes, they needed to find a time when all could meet.
There is a need to act if action is needed, but there is also a need not to overreact. The danger in any tragedy is that we act based on emotion and in order to “do something.”
As one reader posed the question yesterday: how many murders have to occur before action is taken?
We have seen all too many murders in recent years, but I have seen little change result from any of them. When Daniel Marsh murdered two elderly residents, did the school change their protocols for handling students with depression and other mental health disorders? Did we re-examine the depression drug protocols for teenagers, even in light of evidence that he might have been prescribed the wrong medication?
When Aquelin Talamantes drowned her daughter, did we change the family court system that gave her custody of the child, despite serious warning signs?
When William Gardner shot and killed Leslie Pinkston, did we change the way stalking and harassment were treated? Did we change release protocols from prison? Did we change the law to notify potential victims of such release?
Those seem to have been much more preventable killings and we seem to have done very little in this community and in this county to correct the errors that led to those tragedies – but there are people who want to shut down our bars based on this tragedy.
The first step is that we should find out what happened. We don’t know. We only know that one man is dead, the police think it was a gang-related killing, and there are five young men in custody with a sixth at large. We don’t even know which of those men actually stabbed the victim.
The police, while concerned, seem to be approaching this through an air of calmness that the rest of the community should attempt to emulate.
Assistant Chief Darren Pytel indicated that, while there are problems at KetMoRee and they have seen increased problems with respect to that restaurant, “I can say that all of the officers have told me that the staff that works at KetMo does a good job of dealing with the crowds, they handle the incidents inside their bar very well, they call the police anytime they feel it’s necessary.”
Others have told me that the security at KetMoRee is very good, but that is not a universally held belief.
Mr. Pytel told the Vanguard that, at KetMoRee and other locations, they are seeing more and more weapons. “We’ve taken more guns and knives off of people arrested in fights downtown,” he said. “We have kind of seen a change regarding escalation in weapons and violence over the past couple of years.”
The question is whether that is related to bar activity – whether the Davis bars draw in that kind of element or whether it is incidental.
Darren Pytel clarified that the calls for service have not suddenly doubled or tripled downtown, that it’s always been busy. However, the nature of these incidents have escalated somewhat in the last few years.
One thing that he said has improved things is that the police made a conscientious effort to approve more businesses with ABC licenses in the downtown. “What we’re finding is that when you only have a couple of bars and then you have hundreds people standing in line, we were dealing with a lot of problems just with the people standing in line,” he said.
Contrary to what people may believe, the more people you get into a bar, because of the security inside, you actually reduce the problems. So having more places can be a better situation than having not enough space and having people waiting in line, angry that they aren’t inside, having fun.
“Downtown is actually more orderly now that we don’t have all of the long lines in front of some of the bars like we used to,” he said.
This, of course, suggests that curtailing bar business is actually not an effective solution.
But again, I think we need to figure out what happened first before we can figure out the answer to the problem.
That said, I think a lot of people have believed that having more patrol officers would be helpful. Hiring about five extra regular patrol officers, which would add about $800,000 to the city budget, would allow the police to have some additional bodies available to monitor the scene.
Right now, even on a busy Friday or Saturday night, there could be as few as five officers on duty. The city budget remains strapped and stretched thin. It is one reason we have been concerned about the exorbitant fire compensation – the extra few million going to salaries there could have funded additional patrol officers.
Still, as the city looks at revenue measures and developing its revenue base through economic development, adding in funding for more police officers would probably be helpful even if it turns out they would not have prevented this tragedy.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Kind of interesting that David thinks domestic incidents of Davis residents are more preventable, but violence-prone outsiders that come to poach on college-age girls aren’t. (I’m sure college girls lingerie shows motivate criminals to travel into town as often as possible.)
Interesting that in such a long article he neglects to mention that the police believe they are all members of the violent Nortenos street gang, and that one alleged suspect was found to have a large stash of drugs, cash, and weapons at his residence.
Interesting that he fails to mention that many (all?) of these young men may have long rap sheets.
I don’t recall reading anyone asking all the bars to close – an exaggeration – but rather, some have suggested some bars closing earlier. (I believe Walnut Creek may have instituted staggered closing times so that all bars wouldn’t close at once, creating several dozen spots to police, which would be impossible.)
This is not an isolated knife incident. We had two bar patrons stab and try to run over victims on New Years Eve (one individual is a woman). What is the status of those crimes? We also had a mid-day knife fight outside of a bar downtown a year or two back. This “new element” appears to commonly carry knives, something Aggies typically don’t do in 2015.
I recall a time when Davis had one murder every 5 or more years, not one a year with potential for more. Does Davis need a gang task force?
“Interesting that in such a long article he neglects to mention that the police believe they are all members of theviolent Nortenos street gang, and that one alleged suspect was found to have a large stash of drugs, cash, and weapons at his residence.”
i think he reported this on saturday or sunday. and this article focuses more on what the city should do with drinking establishments, so why do you believe he needed to address it?
1. He omitted a major foundational fact.
2. The changes needed for the environment has to consider all relevant facts and options. Misbehaving college students have one set of problems and challenges, gang members traveling in numbers with weapons bring another set of problems.
For example, a slap on the wrist or a public service announcement (PSA) might get through to the former group.
you’ve called it a foundational fact, that doesn’t make it so.
Talk to the Vacaville police, or consult the online Solano County crime database. We’re not in a court of law, we’re in the court of public opinion.
Why do you have such a bleeding heart for the alleged killers of a wonderful young man?
Spot on TrueBlueDevil!
TBD and Anon
“Why do you have such a bleeding heart for the alleged killers of a wonderful young man?”
So now it seems to me that you are equating calling for factual evidence to support one’s claims with having a bleeding heart. I am not sure on what you are basing or supporting this equivalency. Can either of you explain your reasoning ?
I can believe that having people standing in line waiting to get in creates problems, and that having more bars relieves that problems. But I’d guess that that relief is temporary — when we add a lot of bars, we become more of a destination for those outside of Davis. No one will travel for a night club or two, but when you have a “nightclub scene” it becomes more of a destination.
I’ll repeat the possible restrictions I floated on yesterday’s post:
– earlier bar closing times
– “club-only” bars, where one has to be a member to enter, and membership costs some $ amount
– require that guests drinking alcohol must be seated
– Earlier or staggered closing times may have been used in Walnut Creek, a similarly sized city with similar issues 3-4 years ago.
– Utah has those “license” rules, but it was maybe a few bucks, plus when I was there, you had to buy food to be served booze.
davisite – how about my suggestion that Davis hold highly visible DUI checkpoints Friday-Saturday for multiple weekends, and get the message out that we are not the playground for gang members and bad boys?
only gang members and bad boys are affected by dui checkpoints?
DUI checkpoints would help weed out some troublemakers and / or deter some Neanderthals from visiting Davis, at least short term. And if they’re stupid enough to have an open container, weapon, or reefer flowing from the car, so be it.
College students often walk or ride bikes downtown, and many are smart enough to have a designated driver or use Tipsy Taxi.
if they are that effective then why don’t cities with real gang problems use them?
They’re too busy writing up the police reports for the body bags, and talking to witnesses who won’t snitch, and dodging drive byes.
Our crackdown and regualtions on Picnic Day worked, right?
TrueBlueDevil:
Those suggestions are worth considering, too, thanks. Seems to me that this is a time to put all the suggestions on the table and to talk about what has worked elsewhere.
Alan Miller makes many great points. Why does a small city allow the music to get that loud? There have to be tools to turn that volume down, maybe if it even includes complaints from neighbors. There has to be a reasonable level to the music, and if the type of music brings a dangerous element to the city, then that can be dealt with, too.
you never listened to loud music in your youth?
Yes, I did, but not typically at establishments that were close to single family homes. Maybe those cities did a better job with zoning and permitting.
I just read this in the Enterprise, I don’t recall this specificity before. It sounds like we have had a growing gang problem for years … what has our city council and police department considered as adjustments the past 5 years to counter these problems?
“Davis police say that gang, weapons and violence-related crimes have been increasing since 2010, and the number this year is the highest to date. More than half of the cases this year at licensed bars and restaurants have involved some form of violence, the staff report says, and 15 percent have involved a weapon, including a metal pipe, a glass and knives.”
http://www.davisenterprise.com/local-news/council-wants-to-press-pause-on-new-bars-nightclubs/
as opposed to:
“Gangs”.
you’re obsessed with gangs, i know
I like to identify problems without regard to Political Correctness.
When Panamanian or Swiss grandmothers start shanking people in nightclubs, I’ll note it. But right now, they don’t. … but now I have a craving for ceviche.
in my experience those who say they don’t like political correctness either want an excuse to be crass or racist. actions are perpetrated by individuals or small groups of individuals. conservatives like to push the discussion away from societal factors but at the same time want to accept group responsibilities and collective guilt. gangs didn’t stab that young man, a misguided young man or several of them did.
To TrueBlueDevil: I agree there has been a gang problem in Davis for years. Gang members live in this town, then go commit crimes elsewhere as they keep themselves protected in this relatively “safe” haven. Remember Topete and family, who rented a house here in West Davis and killed a cop?
I may have been preoccupied then, I’ll have to google / refresh my memory. I don’t think this is an isolated incident, we should tabulate some of the incidents our local papers have bypassed.
This is almost like the terrorist attacks. It was attack, attack, attack, and we kept our head in the sand. Then they hit the World Trade Center.
What happens when one gang engages another gang in one of our nightclubs? Maybe one gang will have a weapon, and one won’t, and we’ll have a few killed? Could the fight then spill out to the street / parking lot, where the “losing” gang will save face by gaining retribution? We could easily have 4 or 5 people killed. What happens if a gang gets into it with some fraternity or sports members, and a few students are killed.
Can the city council then say, “We didn’t know this was going to happen. We didn’t foresee this.”
When I was in school there were only two places with drinking and dancing in town, and we were 22,000 students. By the time we were seniors, we occasionally would go to “the big city” – to Old Sac or elsewhere, for nightlife. But Davis was our safe haven for tame college fun.
“Remember Topete and family, who rented a house here in West Davis and killed a cop?”
topete crashed at a family’s member’s house in davis and then got kicked out.
The Vanguard could not be more wrong here.
This isn’t about not over-reacting, this is about not having seen the problem coming and taking action a long time ago. These night clubs have been a scourge on the Davis Downtown for well over five years, and the change in the scene is quite profound. This change has been especially pronounced in the past 2-3 years, where a noticeably non-college student crowd dominates.
Most of you are asleep or don’t go downtown by 11:00pm, so you don’t see what I am speaking of. I am a night person and live only a few blocks away. Despite being well across the tracks from downtown, the thump-thump-thump penetrates our houses starting at 11:00pm, and it doesn’t stop — and gets louder — into the night until 2:00am. If I am coming home by bike, car, or on foot that time of night, I’ll frequently swing by the 2nd & E to 2nd & H to 3rd and G corridor and check out the scene, or I’ll walk over to confirm the source for a noise complaint. As often as not I’ll see a gathering of police cars with lights going, having pulled over a drunk driver or detaining someone who caused a problem.
There are people drinking at their cars in the Amtrak lot, or being ACE hardware, or behind Village Bakery. Men are urinating all over in semi-hidden places. Couples are making out in dark corners, and occasionally fornicating (such as the couple fornicating butt-naked in the alley behind my house a few months ago at 1:45am). There are over-indulgers passed out face first on the pavement. There so many people at 3rd and G wandering into the street that it is difficult to make a turn there. There is a look to the college crowd, and a look to those coming in from out of town. Clearly, there is a much higher percentage of out-of-towners.
When the energy of scene reaches a certain level, dark and evil things happen. Murder for example, about as dark as it gets. Before murder comes accusations of rape, stabbings that don’t result in murder, people trying to kill other people by running over them, drunk driving and related accidents, etc. You can see this coming, and we shouldn’t be surprised when it does. Overraction? Hardly, we are reacting way too late. My concern is a bandage will be put on the wound and we’ll continue on with business-as-usual, with an ever-more-expanding Thursday-Saturday party scene. Were this a Davis resident or UCD student that was killed, I believe the reaction of citizens would have been far more severe, and it just as easily could have been.
As previously stated, I was involved in a event that had a sub-event that some of our staff was noticing was getting out-of-control. But people wanted to continue the event, so patches were put on the problem, and then a young woman was raped. The scene was not controllable, but people didn’t want to admit it. There was no choice but to end the scene. The scene was broken up into other venues and handled elsewhere, but when there is a clear problem, it calls for drastic action, and the out-of-control scene needs to be shut down and the energy dispersed to a scene that isn’t so intense and evil. I said evil. Drunk driving, accidents, possible rape, assaults, stabbing, MURDER. We, as Davis, have allowed a scene to fester right under our eyes and choose to ignore it in the name of economic development. It fact, it is a very few establishments that have the night club scene that fosters the intensity of this evil, and there is where the focus must be directed. This cannot be ignored any longer.
Hilarious the idea that having more police on duty is the answer. A small squad would be needed to really handle Thursday – Saturday 11pm to 2am. Want to commit a crime in Davis? Great time to do it, all the cops are downtown. More police cost significant money. If the idea is economic development, it should come from private profits, not from the public payroll. If the price of overtime police exceeds the tax revenue being brought in from the margin of extra taxes from these venues nine hours of nightclub time, the taxpayers are subsidizing these night club scenes the difference. A study in Fullerton, where a similar scene is brewing, has shown this loss to taxpayers in their nightclub scene. I would guess similar economics applies to Davis. The cure isn’t a bigger cast, the cure is not to break your leg in the first place.
When you put out rat foot (nightclub scene), you attract rats.
says that man who lectured the council on fornication a few weeks ago.
AS an attempt as either a factual or comedic reply, that failed on every level.
should i post the video? it’s hilarious. it’s hard to take you seriously.
Powerful post Alan. Thank you. What is the cost-benefit analysis to turning Davis into the new Chico of Northern California?
I’d prefer a business / innovation park over this madness. While Rome burns, the city council discusses illegal street basketball!
Has the city accepted more bars in lieu of real economic development? Are they too passive or weak to say no? Or are they too Politically Correct to acknowledge the “dark element” which now comes to downtown Davis?
To Alan Miller: Excellent post! Spot on! The city is talking about putting public urinals all over the downtown, and making downtown businesses pay for it. Why should a little craft store pay for urinals caused by bars that get students drunk and encourage public urination? One of the problems, IMO, is that the actual businesses causing the problems are not paying for the problems they cause – not paying for the installation of extra urinals, not paying for extra police, not paying for cleanup up of vomit and urine on public/private property, etc. How about charging an extra city tax for having a nightclub?
I am getting the sense that some residents of Davis really don’t like living in a college town.
I don’t think it is cool calling the students “rats”.
I believe he is referring to the crime element and uncontrollable behavior that the city now draws on a regular basis.
It is not all or nothing. Just a few decades ago we had 2 primary bars with dancing, 22,000 students, and we didn’t have this kind of madness downtown. The choice is not nothing or Chico.
That might be another interesting comparison for actual practices.
So you want to eliminate the places that students primarily go to dance and socialize because it can attract a few bad people from outside the area?
Property crime is pretty high in Davis because the “rats” are attracted to it. So should we start banning people from having property so it does not attract the “rats”?