The UC Davis students really have not weighed in yet on potential changes to the Davis Downtown late night scene. Having attended the discussion on Wednesday night, I was concerned with the overwhelming number of residents there from the over-50 persuasion (even as some have reminded me I’m rapidly approaching that plateau myself).
At the same time, despite the heavy demographic tilt, I was heartened to hear that there was a relatively evenly distributed set of responses about whether the business association or the community should be setting the limits for the bar venues. There was not an overwhelming or uniform push for earlier closings.
As Assistant City Manager Kelly Stachowicz put it, “There was not clear consensus among those in attendance how the City should proceed, with responses distributed relatively evenly along the spectrum of placing community limits and allowing for individual business discretion.”
My concern from the start was the overwhelming pushback against the late night bar scene based on a few very bad incidents, starting with the murder at KetMoRee, continuing with the rape in the park from people who had been at Bistro33, and continuing with an attack near the downtown with a baseball bat.
A reward has been offered for information leading to the prosecution of the attackers who assaulted three young men, at Sixth Street and F Street last Saturday at 1:40 am, as they were walking home from a bar.
Part of the problem is we tend to focus on a few anecdotal and horrific incidents, while losing sight of the big picture that Davis Downtown remains much safer than other locations in the region – and our crime rate is steady, even in the downtown, if not slightly declining.
I am supportive of the measures that the council took to date in allowing Blondies to go forward – these include changes to the seating requirements, security improvements, additional patrols in the downtown, and culminating with wanding.
But I am very reluctant to go further. In talking with Heidy Kellison, for instance, she said, “My viewpoint has not changed at all about businesses coming to town that have business plans elsewhere that objectify women and open a potential for an atmosphere that encourages people to act unlawfully.”
My view has not changed either on this. I agree with her, that we do not need more bars and late night facilities in the downtown. However, I don’t think that a group of citizens who never utilize the services, or the government, should be the ones to make that determination.
The idea that I remain most opposed to is the idea of shutting down the bars earlier. Some, like Michael Harrington, have suggested 12 midnight as an appropriate closing time. The premise is that most of the problems that occur seem to occur late in the evening. By shutting down early, they argue, out-of-town consumers who are the ones, in their view, who are causing most of the problems, would go elsewhere.
Having covered court cases for nearly six years, I don’t really agree that it is outsiders who are causing these problems. We have covered barfights, assault trials and even rapes, and, as often as not, the people involved in these cases are UC Davis students – not some sort of outsider. We don’t have data on the downtown crime to see the breakdown, but that would seem to be an important piece of information that is missing.
However, that issue aside, I think that changing the time for serving alcohol to 12 is not going to change a lot of the problems and could, in fact, lead to new problems.
First, students operate on a different clock than older residents. I remember the days when we didn’t go out until after 10 pm. A 12 am closing time wasn’t going to end our evening – we would have taken it to Sacramento or another community that has bars open later, or we would take it to a house party.
When the Vanguard held its forum on October 14, this was the point raised by both the students and the police – that an earlier closing time would push the drinking either across the causeway or into the neighborhoods.
Pushing it across the causeway would mean that we would have a lot more drinking and driving. The city of Davis and UC Davis has actually done a good job of getting kids out of their cars when they drink. You see many walking from Russell to downtown so that they don’t have to drive home drunk. We have things like Tipsy Taxi, that encourage people not to drink and drive. Changing where students drink could upset that delicate balance.
The second problem, one that the police and students raised as a concern, is that having people gather in the downtown to drink actually isn’t the worst thing – they are in regulated establishments, drinking and safety can be monitored, and the police can keep tabs on them.
Pushing parties into the neighborhoods leads to conflict with older residents who want their quiet, it leads to a greater chance for underage drinking, and it leads to higher probabilities of sexual assaults and other problems in the unmonitored situations.
So yes, we can shut down the late night scene downtown earlier, but that is not going to make the problems go away and might make them more difficult to address.
I think the best approach at this point is to implement the Blondies regulations universally and come back in six months to see how things are going – we can always change things if things are not improving.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
I believe I said to stop selling alcohol at midnight. The kids can stay and socialize after that.
You keep repeating the line, what evidence do you have that it will do what you want it to?
I think that this might be an area where some actual information, rather than personal preference or individual experience might be useful. I am wondering if there are communities that have limited the hours of alcohol sales either city wide or in restricted areas and what their outcomes have been.
It is fine to speculate about what might happen. David has stated that he would have just gone somewhere else to drink. I would have just gone home a little earlier. Some might do as Mr. Harrington has suggested and just hang out while sobering up. Different people will respond in different ways which is why I think some actual data collection might be beneficial. I am wondering if our police have gathered such information. I do not recall this specific point being addressed other than by speculation at the first forum. Perhaps this could be looked into while awaiting the results of he initial steps already taken.
Actually you make an excellent point. Guessing at what might happen if bars closed earlier is only that, a guess.
Of course it’s only a guess – it’s also an opinion, but I think we need to be concerned about the unintended consequences of policy changes, don’t you?
We also have to be concerned about the unintended consequences if we don’t make changes.
We have made some changes – a lot of changes. Some of which have been formalized, but a lot of which the bar owners are taking into account from conversations. I believe that we will push the problem into the neighborhoods and onto the freeways if we simply close early.
David
“I think we need to be concerned about the unintended consequences of policy changes, don’t you?”
Absolutely, which is why I am suggesting an evidence based approach rather than guess work and personal preference.
So we have implemented a series of changes, shouldn’t we now see if they help alleviate or the resolve the problem before adding to them?
There should be sobriety check points for the first few weeks after implementation, near the freeway onramps. What do patrons do at 2:00? This is probably what they will do at midnight, I’m guessing. Some will go home, others will continue to party somewhere else.
One thing we learned that was interesting is that you can’t put sobriety check points just anywhere, it has to be based on data
If you stop serving alcohol at mid-night are you going to allow it to be sold by off-sale vendors until 2 a.m.? I think you need a time that is the same for everyone. Right now the state has it set at 2 a.m. Otherwise people will pour out of the bars when they stop serving and head over to a liquor store and into the neighborhoods.
That’s exactly the point I was making, creating a stricter law doesn’t solve the problem, it just shifts the problem to the lower point of enforment.
Davis is well-known in the region as a business-unfriendly city.
Now Davis is becoming a student and university-unfriendly city.
Interesting that all this unfriendliness seems to come from the same core group of people.
I am extremely pro-business, pro-student, but I want change in the bar scene. Wanting change to make the downtown bar scene safer for students is neither anti-business nor anti-student.
The question is have we done enough right now to change it and I think the answer is we don’t know. But let’s get some data on what the council has already approved before we look at going further.
Why not look at both simultaneously ?
If we try to do both simultaneously it will be more difficult to know which one worked.
We have done both simultaneously already, by instituting new regs for Blondies without any data to know if it will work. I’m with Tia on this one.
Anon – You are an exception to that core group of people. You are usually on the other side supporting business. Frankly, I have been a bit surprised at your positions on this topic.
I doubt I am the exception! I think even a lot of the businesses themselves (the ones that don’t have bars) want to see some changes downtown to the bar/nightclub scene. I really don’t understand why you would be against some simple regulations that might make things safer downtown, and I am not talking about closing the bars at midnight. I pointed out I don’t think that is the real issue. My guess is, and I don’t know for sure, that the real problems lie with the lax business practices at the bars/nightclubs. If you tighten them up, as I suggested above, it would probably take care of most of the difficulties. Wand customers, train staff to follow ABC regs, add extra security, and have the bars/nightclubs pay for it and the cleanup, and voila, problem probably solved. It won’t be a panacea, but it would go a long way to addressing the violence.
I don’t know what business owners you are talking to, but the ones I talk to understand the business dynamics occurring downtown and in the city. Did you read in the Enterprise today about the Binning trust liquidating their ownership of several downtown properties? Delunas is closing because of it. Rent is going up, up, up. Retailers will not be able to afford to be downtown. I know of several fretting about new locations but there are none. But more pizza restaurants that can run a nightclub can make it work. And there are plenty of paying customers to make it work.
Downtown is transforming into something you and these other typical complainers don’t like for a number of reasons that are mostly of the City’s own doing.
By “safer for students”. I assume you meant female and male students. Another comment described the objectification of women, and it was probably referring to rumored lingerie parties at certain bars. As a staunch feminist, I have such mixed feelings on this subject. It’s kind of like adult porn. If a consenting woman wants to pose for Penthouse and no one has drugged her or forced her in any way to pose nude, who am I to tell her she should not do that? Who am I to tell college students they should not attend lingerie parties? I wouldn’t do that in my younger day. But I remember one of my college roommates used to make extra money by entering wet tee shirt contests. I was appalled and spewed my feminist rhetoric at her every chance I got. But she just laughed and told me she made way better money at those contests (in San Diego) than working as a waitress the same amount of hours.
She had every right to do that because she was a consenting adult woman. Silly college women who want to attend lingerie parties should have the right to do that, too. I don’t want to curtail a woman’s freedom to do stupid behavior. I just pray they stay in groups and have made plans ahead of time to make sure all their silly bff’s make it safely home after the lingerie party or the night of binge drinking.
When you add 5000 people to the student population, where are they going to drink, since alcohol is prohibited on campus? With 4000 more, they are bring forced to find more places to go, or crowd out the ones that are there. Davis is so Type A power drinkers frat boy and sorority girl juvenile stuff.
Blondies alone will not absorb all the increase in customers. David’s opposition to growth is typical for Davis. Just like housing, Davis has no clue how to keep up. Therefore the West Village, and more University buildings. And they can only house 1/4 of their students. You have to grow just to keep up.
Excellent point!
Those seem like good questions to ask the university when they announce their enrollment increases.
It is not just a question for the university since they will want to eat, shop and drink in the city. Maybe we should just shuttle them out to that massive inventory of preserved farmland to do something fun.
What a small town mentality. I was in Madison WI in 1975 and stayed up all night going from place to place after the bars closed, eating and hanging out. It was a weekend, of course, but what a place! You didn’t have to go home, just stop drinking, which did not really stop, just stop being sold.
Some of the ideas on this are akin to raising the drinking age in Davis to 26, the age apparently that is an Adult now that the ACA allows kids to be on their Health Care?
This is the Comedy of Davis and the City Council discussions, something I thought I was away from when I came to California. Raise the bar, Davis! Quit reacting.
I don’t particularly care one way or the other whether the sale of liquor is closed down after midnight or 2 a.m. I don’t really think the time of day is the real issue here. Untrained bar/nightclub staff, unsavory business practices by the bars/nightclubs and their untrained staff, inadequate security in the bars/nightclubs, not following ABC regulations in the bars/nightclubs, not making bars/nightclubs fully financially responsible for their business practices, etc. are the more likely culprits to the increase in violence downtown. Correct those things, and I believe the downtown will be a lot safer/tamer. Along with that, I would like the Davis PD/city to make a concerted effort at public education to get all citizens to take basic precautionary measures in daily living, e.g. lock car and house/apartment doors, travel in groups late at night rather than alone. As long as everyone puts their head in the sand and pretends this is a completely safe town where no one needs to lock doors or pay attention, this town will be wide open for plundering.
“My concern from the start was the overwhelming pushback against the late night bar scene based on a few very bad incidents, starting with the murder at KetMoRee, continuing with the rape in the park from people who had been at Bistro33, and continuing with an attack near the downtown with a baseball bat.”
“Part of the problem is we tend to focus on a few anecdotal and horrific incidents, while losing sight of the big picture that Davis Downtown remains much safer than other locations in the region – and our crime rate is steady, even in the downtown, if not slightly declining.”
These two paragraphs really irritated me. On the one hand it lists three horrific crimes, then proceeds in the next breath to downplay their significance. Bottom line, would you want your son/daughter attending college to be subjected to such criminal behavior? If not, then there is nothing wrong with this town trying to institute some new regulations to make it safer for our students.
“Having covered court cases for nearly six years, I don’t really agree that it is outsiders who are causing these problems. We have covered barfights, assault trials and even rapes, and, as often as not, the people involved in these cases are UC Davis students – not some sort of outsider. We don’t have data on the downtown crime to see the breakdown, but that would seem to be an important piece of information that is missing.”
This paragraph infuriated me. Now the Vanguard is going to blame UCD students for the murder at KetMoRee, the sexual assault on the girl, and the 3 assaulted with a baseball bat? Really? And how do you know UCD students perpetrated these crimes??? The KetMoRee murder certainly had nothing to do with UCD students.
You’re getting infuriated by grossly misinterpreting my comment. The claim has been that the problem is outsiders, I don’t think that’s uniformly the case and presented evidence to that effect.
To David Greenwald: YOUR WORDS: “…as often as not, the people involved in these cases are UC Davis students – not some sort of outsider.”
EXPLAIN TO ME WHERE I MISINTERPRETED!
The cases I’m referring to are the cases observed in the Yolo County courts (as you can see in the bolded quote above) from that you asked how KetMoRee involved UC Davis students, when clearly I was not referring to KetMoRee, hence you’re distortion of my comment.
So only cases going to Yolo court count? Really? What about all the cases plea bargained out, as most cases are?
Bottom line, do you believe most crime in Davis is perpetrated by UCD students? Simple question.
My full comment was: ““Having covered court cases for nearly six years, I don’t really agree that it is outsiders who are causing these problems. We have covered barfights, assault trials and even rapes, and, as often as not, the people involved in these cases are UC Davis students – not some sort of outsider.” By “these problems” I am referring to the general bar scene crimes. I note that in the barfights, assault trials and rapes, the perpetrators are not those outside of the community for the most part but rather UC Davis students.
My anecdotal evidence obviously refers to those going to trial or that we cover in prelim. It’s not a full analysis of the data. It is also clearly not referring to KetMoRee.
“Bottom line, do you believe most crime in Davis is perpetrated by UCD students? ”
The answer to your question is no, but your question also broadens the scope considerably from the subject covered in the paragraph.
When I lived in south Davis, am positive my over indulging neighbors were not outsiders. They were students who were sh $t faced drunk and woke me up on several occasions. Another neighbor had the smart idea to look up their rental home in the county records. Turns out one of the partiers’ parents owned the rental. My neighbor calmly called the owner, who lived out of town. The weekend parties & very loud noise stopped immediately. I guess the (wealthy) homeowner was the outsider, in this scenario.
I have to agree with Anon. Three violent crimes in a matter of weeks is disturbing. Maybe you didn’t intend to be dismissive but that is the way it read. I also agree that this out of towner angle is annoying. Everyone is from somewhere and most aren’t from Davis including most UC students. However, I have always believed that arguments against growth, because it will increase crime, are stupid because much of the crime that occurs here comes from people getting off the freeway looking for trouble. Davis is only an offramp away from anywhere and there is little we can do about it.
Despite a bad run of violence I disagree with those who say downtown has gotten worse. I lived in Old North Davis for many years and there were always drunks being obnoxious around closing time. If you choose to live near downtown Davis you can’t expect that there won’t be drunks stumbling out of the bars late night and doing dumb stuff. It doesn’t make it right but thinking we can somehow change such behavior through an ordinance is dumb stuff as well. You would think lawyers would know better. If you want to get away from it do what I did. I moved to a quieter part of town. Now my only problem is the occasional kegger in the neighborhood a few times a year.
Please don’t make your problem with late night drunks into my problem by imposing an early last call in the bars. It will only send the kids packing into the quieter parts of town unless you shut down alcohol sales at off site vendors as well.
Well said.
The next rape or violent attack with any connection to the disco hall bar scene will be the end of it all. I’ve said my piece.
I don’t think so. The bars don’t cause the rapes or fights, the people involved are responsible.
mh – that’s just an overly emotional reaction that lacks foundation. why not allow the professional police department to advise the council on how best to proceed?
BP
“the people involved are responsible.”
Sometimes….and sometimes folks who are already inebriated continue to be served drinks. And some then claim that even though there are laws against this practice, that it is only the fault of the person consuming the drinks.
What did the bars have to do with the rape in central park and the bat attack on 6th st.?
Bars cause rape.
Alcohol stabs people to death.
Disco dance music lures bad people from out of town.
Bartenders force female patrons to wear skimpy clothing.
Apparently everyone has fallen down that rabbit hole with Alice.
Frankly
And yet another example as Biddlin said about not listening. Very easy to call out what no one has said as though you are making a point.
Tia – hiding behind a literal test still leaves you exposed.
The inferences are all over the thousands of words written by people posting on this topic.
There is a rape and the downtown bars serving alcohol are to blame.
There is a stabbing murder and the downtown bars are to blame.
Anon has blamed the bartenders for giving free drinks to female patrons wearing skimpy clothing because she read it on Yelp.
Alan Miller as written that the “thumpa thumpa” music attracts the bad element from out of town.
You have on many cases tried to use the public health issue of excess alcohol consumption as being connected to the business-practices of these establishments… just like the early prohibitionists did.
Sure, nobody said those absurd things literally. But they sure said them.
David, I wish you had said from the outset that your primary concern, the previously stated “over-reaction”, was that an earlier closing time was a bad idea. On this we agree.
Your contention that the murder, gang rape, gang assault, knife pulling, vehicle assault, etc. are simply aberrations to an overall safe downtown, is flat-out bizarre. That’s like saying the two space shuttles that lost all hands were aberrations to an overall safe shuttle program. True-ISH.
If we fail to recognize the source of the escalation of violence, many businesses that are not a problem will be swept into the mix under the guise of “even enforcement” and needlessly punished. That is why I believe the few morphing bad actors, the floor-clearing restaurants turned de-facto night clubs, need to be called out: so the rest of the businesses may continue without un-needed restrictions. With Tres Hermanas recognizing the problem itself and voluntarily pulled out, only a few remain.
Speculation on everyone’s part, in article author and commenters, on how they think large groups of alcohol seekers will react to changes, where and when if they will drive — and what they will do after closing time, conveniently fits everyone’s own agenda on what they think should be done.
Hmmmmm . . .
Well said, Alan!
Alan: What is the ‘source of the escalation of violence’ as you describe it, and what evidence do you have that backs up that conclusion?
What evidence do you have that your so called ‘escalation of violence’ actually exists?
What evidence do you have that these businesses are at fault? All I see is your statement of belief and your repeated anecdotes, which amount to nil when it comes to ‘evidence.’
On this we agree.
David
“If we try to do both simultaneously it will be more difficult to know which one worked.”
You missed my point. I was not suggesting doing both simultaneously. I was suggesting acquiring the data on timed closures and their affects while implementing the plans already agreed upon. That way we would be ready at the end of six months with further data based plans if advisable, and firm evidence on which to say that other steps would not be beneficial if that is the case, rather than having to wait to gather more information.
Also, by your rationale, we would be making only one change at a time since we will not know which of the steps agreed upon was beneficial, no ?
Also, do you, or anyone else know what the 2 am closure is based on?. Was there data driving this decision which seems rather arbitrary, or did someone just pull it out of thin air ? So why not until six am, why not until the start of the work day ? Why not 24/7 ?
The 2 am closure is the state law, I don’t know what the rationale is. My concern again is that going under state law could push the problem elsewhere. I’d like to see if the current changes are enough to alleviate the problem before going further.
A compelling question.
If closing at midnight makes the problem worse, can we help alleviate the issues by closing at 3am, 4am? Dawn? Why is it that 2am is the right time to close, and midnight will make it worse?
The advantage of 2 am is that it is statewide.
Again you misquote me.
What I said was that dancing brings out the inverted image of the Angel Gabriel that evokes the spirit of evil manifest in Satanic ritual as evidenced by the goat sacrifices in the Amtrak parking lot. The only way to stop this is build a goat-proof moat along the Union Pacific railroad, widen the Richards tunnel to eight lanes so that I-80 feeds all cars from both east and west directly to the vacant cavern of Tucos, resulting in an 8000 car pileup that rightens Gabriel, reopens Tucos, and restores all heroin dens in downtown Davis to their rightful 24-hr. status so that the 5000 new students will be well-opiated upon arrival and business will thrive in the new 80-story skyscrapers along the E-Street corridor, which doubles as the runway for Davis International, where direct flights from Afghanistan bring in poppies to feed the heroin mills along the newly-build P-Street Industrial Corridor, bringing thousands of jobs to Davis and keeping open the downtown opium dens while water planes from Lake Michigan land every ten minutes to fill the moat along the Union Pacific. Davis will be the economic envy of Zamora, and Tucos will spread far and wide throughout the west, with more branches than Starbucks.
Stop misquoting me.
Frankly: “Anon has blamed the bartenders for giving free drinks to female patrons wearing skimpy clothing because she read it on Yelp.”
Barack Palin: “The bars don’t cause the rapes or fights, the people involved are responsible.”
Giving free drinks is a violation of ABC regs for a reason. Bars that don’t act responsibly can CONTRIBUTE to violence/criminal activity. Whether that was the case at KetMoRee still remains unknown, as the police investigation is still under way. However, even the owner of Tres Hermanes conceded that the violence was getting to be too much for his business and he decided to close down the nightclub portion. So apparently a BUSINESS OWNER doesn’t necessarily agree with your views. And I can tell you for certain there are non-bar BUSINESSES downtown that are fed up with the bars/nightclubs, and want something done.
Frankly: “I don’t know what business owners you are talking to, but the ones I talk to understand the business dynamics occurring downtown and in the city. Did you read in the Enterprise today about the Binning trust liquidating their ownership of several downtown properties? Delunas is closing because of it. Rent is going up, up, up. Retailers will not be able to afford to be downtown. I know of several fretting about new locations but there are none. But more pizza restaurants that can run a nightclub can make it work. And there are plenty of paying customers to make it work.
Downtown is transforming into something you and these other typical complainers don’t like for a number of reasons that are mostly of the City’s own doing.”
I really am not sure where you were coming from. Non-bar businesses are fed up with having to cleanup the vomit left on the sidewalks in front of their stores from drunken students exiting the bars next door. Nor do they want to pay for the porta potty’s either. Why should they? Their business didn’t cause the problem. Making the bars and nightclubs more responsible for their own business practices is just common sense. That is a completely separate issue from the other matters you raise.
DeLuna’s is closing because the owner is retiring. Downtown rents are expensive, but then so are rents in neighborhood shopping centers which or not downtown. The fact of the matter is, it is expensive to live or own a business in Davis because it is a desirable location due to the proximity of the University. That has nothing to do with the downtown violence issue. The fact of the matter is, if the city could make the downtown less violent, it is more likely to be business friendly.
I just visited Berkeley the other day. It has a thriving downtown full of retail, with some restaurants sprinkled in. It did not appear to have a lot of bars, but I only made a cursory inspection. I would actually like to see Davis downtown have more retail than restaurants, but unfortunately retail has not thrived in Davis because the prices are too high for merchandise. People shop outside Davis where goods are cheaper. My hope is, that if an innovation park(s) ever comes to fruition, an influx of younger families with children will drive a more thriving economy in Davis.
Bottom line – wanting to enforce some reasonable regulations for the bars/nightclubs to make the downtown safer is NOT ANTI-BUSINESS.
If the twenty something crowd of late night drinkers really cared about this, more of them would have shown up to present their side.
No. He is retiring earlier than he planed because the building is being sold and his rents will increase significantly. Say bye bye to Watermelon Music too.
Fantasy Land.
Berkeley is supported by a completely different demographic mix than Davis. Davis has old people that don’t spend money and go to bed early, and young people. Berkeley retail is supported by a large demographic of young professionals.
Davis does not have the customer base to support the mix of business types you desire. It is a pipe-dream to imagine it so.
Berkeley also has a much higher crime rate than Davis.
http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ca/berkeley/crime/
http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ca/davis/crime/