News Article: December 29, 2006
City tells bar owners to control their 'gladiators' or else
Vancouver Courier
December 29, 2006
By Mike Howell-Staff writer
City council has given Granville Street bar owners a 90-day ultimatum to come up with solutions to curb public disorder on the notorious downtown strip.
The ultimatum is one of the recommendations approved by council this month as part of Mayor Sam Sullivan's "Project Civil City." The countdown begins in January and expires at the end of March.
"What is unacceptable to me is the neighbourhoods of the city are losing their police protection because of the disorder in the entertainment district," Sullivan told the Courier. "And I don't think it's right that all the citizens should give up their own protection for a bunch of hooligans."
Sullivan said he is not opposed to rolling back the 3 a.m. closing times on weekends to 2 a.m. to fall in line with bars in the Lower Mainland. But he added such a decision will be up to the entire council.
The disorder includes fighting, people urinating on the street and people drinking booze in public. Police have also seized guns and knives from people in the neighbourhood.
John Teti, chair of Barwatch, an organization that represents more than 25 bar owners on the strip, said rolling back the hours will not reduce or stop street disorder.
"If you roll the hours back to two in the morning, you're going to have the same problems you have now," Teti said. "You're just going to shift the problem a little bit. The problem isn't the hour of the bar, the problem is there is no consequence for the people who misbehave."
He said the solution to reducing the disorder is rooted in more enforcement and stiffer penalties for offenders. Without that combination, the problems will continue, regardless of the hours.
Teti agrees more people are flocking to Vancouver because of the later closing hours. But, he said, it's no surprise that people come to a large city for their entertainment.
"That's been going on for a thousand years. People have been going to the major urban area, whatever it is, for their entertainment. The Romans went to Rome to watch the gladiators."
And, he said, people have been fighting on Granville Street for as long as he can remember. Teti grew up in Vancouver and owns the Shark Club on West Georgia Street, near GM Place.
"This is not something that's a new phenomenon and suddenly raised its ugly head when the bars opened until three. I mean Granville Street has been a battleground, in terms of testosterone, since the 1950s, probably since the '40s."
All the bars on Granville have surveillance cameras and security personnel working the door with metal detectors. More than 80 per cent of the bars have scanners to log patrons' personal identification.
"The bars are doing everything they can to maintain a safe night out for their customers. But there clearly are people who are hanging out on Granville Street or going down there, who have no intention of going to a bar and for the most part are there to create a problem."
Over the next 90 days, Teti said bar owners will work with police and city staff to determine what more owners can do. If anything, owners could be more diligent about not letting troublemakers into their bars, he said.
Teti supports adding surveillance cameras on the strip. The Vancouver Police Board will vote on the concept in May. If the board votes in favour, the police will then ask city council in October for money to fund the system.
As mayor, Sullivan is the de facto chair of the police board. He hasn't committed one way or the other to surveillance cameras, but said the concept is worth examining.
Sullivan said his much-talked-about civil city commissioner will be hired before the bar owners' 90-day ultimatum expires. The commissioner will be expected to present council with a report on the bar owners' suggestions.
Teti pointed out the three-block strip has never had an official community plan and he will push for that. With 5,000 liquor seats in the neighbourhood, council should have expected there could be problems, he added.
"The city did create the entertainment district. That's where they asked people to move their bars to, and that's where people did move their bars."