| |
| |
|
|
| |
PROVIDENCE CITY HALL -- meaning the mayor, the city council, and the licensing department -- want to wage a war on the city’s nightclubs. They say that’s not the case, but that is the practical result.
At issue are the problems -- vandalism, fighting, disorderly behavior, and the like -- that sometimes occur when thousands of people stream from downtown and Jewelry District clubs on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. Some observers say there’s no more fighting or crime when clubs empty that there was 20 years ago. Critics, though, citing Providence’s increased popularity as a destination, assert that an excessive number of club patrons cross the line of unlawful behavior.
But the real question is why officials in Rhode Island’s capital, which tends to be fairly sleepy by day and a little more active, sometimes, by night, are trying to squelch one of the forces of economic vitality in the city.
In many ways, the debate over nightlife is a clash between competing visions of the city.
There will always be those that want to diminish -- in the ostensible name of the greater good -- the ability of law-abiding people to enjoy their leisure time. But even though there’s a clear distinction between recent shootings at some Olneyville venues, and quality-of-life concerns in the downtown-Jewelry District nightclub zone, proponents are ready to use a broad brush to stifle the ability of law-abiding citizens to enjoy themselves.
After several years of effort, proponents of more stringently regulated nightlife are ascendant, setting the stage for the Providence City Council to create a new Class N nightclub-licensing category with additional regulations. Supporters hold out hope that the envisioned changes -- such as requiring nightclubs that remain open until 2 a.m. to stop admitting patrons one hour earlier -- will reduce problems and curb a perceived last-minute influx of club-goers from outside the city. It’s entirely open to question, though, what this effort will accomplish, and the effects may well be more negative than positive for Providence.
The campaign for heightened regulation also largely ignores the proverbial elephant in the living room -- the way in which thousands of departing bar and club patrons are expected to clear downtown and the adjacent Jewelry District as quickly as possible at closing time.
Even critics acknowledge that a very small fraction of nightlife denizens are responsible for most of the misbehavior. The sheer size and suddenness of the end-of-night exodus, however, creates traffic jams and makes it unfeasible for outnumbered police officers to enforce the law against quality-of-life crimes. The progressive solution would be allowing clubs to stay open later, say until 3 a.m., and curtailing admissions and alcohol sales at 2 a.m., so customers would gradually drift out, rather than leaving en masse. As it stands, though, this kind of approach has about as much of a chance as a Republican takeover of the General Assembly.
It’s not as if enforcement efforts to curb disorderly behavior and the other quality-of-life concerns sometimes associated with nightlife in the Jewelry District and downtown haven’t proven successful. In fact, Providence police credit an ongoing push against underage drinking in bars and clubs with substantially reducing these breaches and much of the related misbehavior.
The Class N nightclub licensing effort isn’t without some worthy goals, such as preventing, for instance, an enterprise that gains a license as a restaurant in a residential neighborhood from suddenly morphing into a nightclub. On the face of it, the idea of creating a separate licensing category for nightclubs (essentially defined as an alcohol-serving establishment with a capacity for between 200 and 10,000 people) seems reasonable. But some parts of the proposed new regulation, including preventing nightclubs from admitting patrons after 1 a.m., smack of small-town paternalism and punishing the many for the misdeeds of the few. It’s contrary to the enhanced stature of Providence -- which is a city, after all -- and efforts to build Rhode Island’s capital as a destination for dining, entertainment, conventions, and the like. It’s also worth remembering that nightlife, particularly Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel, was a rare source of downtown vitality in the otherwise desolate days before anyone had ever heard of WaterFire.
And while the opportunity for those under 21 to go to live shows and dance nights seems safe for now, even the more liberal members of the Providence City Council want to require nightclubs to gain night-by-night approval for admitting under-21s. Some, like Rich Lupo, who likens night-by-night approval to the current process, are untroubled by the envisioned Class N license, calling it a good answer (provided that city officials don’t seek a prohibition on under-21 nights) to lingering quality-of-life concerns.
If the new measures are implemented and still don’t satisfy critics, however, it’s hardly a stretch to think that, emboldened by the precedent of prohibitionist regulation, they’ll renew their focus on eliminating under-21 nights -- an effective way to kill the live music scene in clubs like Lupo’s.
THANKS TO ENABLING legislation that last year became law, the Providence City Council directed the Board of Licenses in late December to draft a separate licensing category for nightclubs. Speaking this week, licensing board chairman Andrew J. Annaldo says he’s hopeful that the board’s document will be drafted and returned to the council for approval within the next 30 days. It’s not unconceivable than opponents will make a stand at the council meeting to express their concern and displeasure, although Mayor David N. Cicilline, as a strong supporter of the proposal, is expected to back the measure.
Cicilline says he remains committed to the concept of vibrant nightlife in Providence as an integral part of the city’s identity. It’s good that the mayor recognizes the importance of the under-21 crowd to the live music scene and venues like Lupo’s. "I think we have a responsibility to do everything we can in terms of enforcement before we consider prohibiting [those under 21 from nightclubs]," he says. As far as the planned 1 a.m. deadline for cutting off admission to nightclubs open until 2 a.m., Cicilline contends that club denizens will adjust accordingly. "What it’s going to end up doing is bringing those people into the city earlier in the evening," he says. "I think in the long run it’s likely to have a positive impact on the nightclub business."
Many in the nightlife industry, however, are alarmed by what they see as the increasingly heavy hand of government regulation.
Nightlife impresario Michael Kent, who owns the Complex, among a number of other establishments, and leases the Strand (and, like several of the business owners mentioned in this story, is a Phoenix advertiser), for example, says he was amenable to a compromise that would have stopped nightclubs from admitting new patrons at 1:30 a.m. But he’s so troubled by the new nightlife measure, particularly the restriction on admitting patrons after 1 a.m., that he plans to seek a temporary injunction to prevent the rules from being implemented. Kent says the earlier deadline was surreptitiously imposed, and that Cicilline subsequently "back-doored" him to facilitate the relocation from Westminster Street of Lupo’s (the mayor declined to respond directly to this accusation), but more about this later.
After a 30 percent reduction in his business over the last year -- something that Kent attributes to the fallout from the Station fire -- and the outlay of more than $1 million on safety enhancements at his venues, the new regulation seems like insult on top of injury. (Nor does it help that the state sales tax has been raised from seven to eight percent.) "It will hurt business in the clubs," Kent says. "It will do absolutely nothing for the public or anyone else. It won’t stop noise. It won’t have any of the benefits [cited by proponents]. It’s nothing more than enabling legislation that tries to appease or bullshit the public into thinking the politicians are actually doing something, but it will have no benefit whatsoever."
Although the 30 minutes between 1 a.m. and 1:30 a.m. may not seem like a long time, nightclubs make most of their money during the peak hours on three nights -- Thursday, Friday, and Saturday -- and eliminating the combined 90 minutes poses a significant loss of revenue.
Certainly, recent episodes of violence, including a fatal shooting in the parking lot of Sanctuary, an Olneyville nightclub, and a shooting at Club Therapy, another Olneyville club, are cause for concern. As city council president John J. Lombardi notes, however, questions remain about whether a police detail was supposed to be at Sanctuary on the night of the shooting. "If it’s true that the club applied for police presence and the police did not respond, that’s not a problem with the club," he says. "Someone dropped the ball somewhere. I think there’s some blame to go around. How does someone defend against a superceding criminal act? What dominion and control do we have over that?"
This kind of nuance seems lost on Councilwoman Josephine DiRuzzo, who shortly after the recent shootings, expressed her desire that the Board of Licenses consider eliminating 1 a.m-to-4 a.m. restaurant and nightclub licenses. Yet in rebutting DiRuzzo with an editorial on Tuesday, January 6, even the Providence Journal -- hardly an advocate of unrestrained hedonism -- called for a more focused approach: "Rather than using a blanket rule, we call upon the police and Board of Licenses to carefully monitor individual establishments and close them quickly when there are incidents . . . . After a disaster such as the Station nightclub fire, the first instinct is to pass a new law -- for officials and others to then ignore until the next disaster. It is usually harder, but far more effective, to actually enforce at least a few of the old laws on the books."
Meanwhile, the impact of the new regulations would likely be greater for the owners of smaller clubs and niche bars, which get some of the spillover from clubs, than someone like Kent, who owns an array of entertainment entities. John Dorr, the owner of Mira Bar, an inconspicuous gay bar on Richmond Street, is a case in point. With a capacity of about 200, Mira Bar would fall just within the new definition of a nightclub. And although Dorr might be able to diminish his capacity to avoid being affected by the new regulations, he’d rather expand to an additional floor, in part to make up for insurance costs that have soared, he says, from $7500 to $33,000, in the last two years.
Dorr says his establishment doesn’t really get busy until 11 at night, and losing the ability to admit patrons for the last hour will hurt his business. His clientele comes late, often after dinner, a movie, or some other activity, he says, "because they don’t want to get smashed," and the typical patron spends $12 -- the equivalent of the $7 cover charge and two drinks. Dorr favors the idea of keeping clubs open slightly longer at the end of the night -- while curtailing admissions and alcohol service -- to alleviate the closing-time crush, but he says the idea has gotten a cold reception.
Dorr, who has been in the nightclub business for 30 years, recalls how people living in Massachusetts towns like Randolph and Mansfield would go out in Boston in the old days, rather than Providence, because of its more appealing nightlife. Over time, he says, Providence became an enhanced destination and attracted more club-goers, thanks to a later closing time, better restaurants, WaterFire, the Providence Place Mall, and other attractions. Now, though, "Nightclubs in this town have been under siege for the last few years," Dorr says, and he’s fearful that the pending prohibition on admitting club patrons after 1 a.m. will lead many customers once again to go to Boston instead of Providence. With bars, restaurants, and other businesses facing less spin-off spending from club patrons, "I think the whole city is going to suffer from this," he says.
THE QUESTION floats in the background of whether the city played fast and loose to get what it wanted with the long-discussed relocation of Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel to the Strand on Washington Street, a move, through the rehab of the Peerless Building (which formerly housed Lupo’s), that will expedite the residential development of Westminster Street.
It’s positive, after years of glacial progress, that things to bring more vitality to downtown -- the development of more residential housing, additional cafes and shops, RISD’s expansion across the river -- seem to be suddenly coalescing. Still, rents for the new downtown apartments start close to $1000, leading some in the arts community to wonder who is going to inhabit them and raising the specter of a yuppie playground. The related question is whether nightlife and entities like Lupo’s, which helped to sustain Providence in its bleaker days, are now getting short shrift. Some nightlife entrepreneurs increasingly see the city -- which supported a highly favorable tax package to help lure lottery maker GTECH to Providence last year -- as anti-business.
No one believes this more than Kent. A controversial personality, the nightlife impresario says he has tried to be a good corporate citizen by, for example, chartering buses, spending a couple of hundred thousand dollars in the process, to shuttle customers to his clubs. Then, after being asked by Cicilline to accommodate the relocation of Lupo’s at the Strand, Kent says, "It will cost us money, probably, rather than making us money, but as a way to move the city forward and keep the peace, keep everyone happy . . . we struck a deal with Lupo and the mayor."
Kent, who leases the Strand, says Cicilline and his chief of staff, Mike Mello -- who brokered the Lupo’s relocation deal -- told him the nightclub ordinance would go back to a city council committee in December, so Kent would have a chance to express his concern about the ban on admitting patrons after 1 a.m. Instead, Kent says, "As soon as they got what they wanted [with the relocation of Lupo’s], they rushed this new ordinance through the city."
Noting that the Providence City Council delayed consideration of the nightclub licensing issue before approving it in late December, Cicilline says, "I don’t know the answer as to why particular members of the council acted or didn’t act," and he referred questions on the subject to the council. But as far as any agreement between Kent and the city, "That was an agreement that was brokered with the executive branch of government," says council president Lombardi. "The Strand is in my ward, and I literally read about it [the Lupo’s relocation agreement] in the paper. I would have loved to have weighed in on it."
(Kent also asserts that state Representative Paul Moura [D-Providence], the main sponsor of the related enabling nightclub legislation in the House, misled him by changing the deadline for admitting nightclub patrons for 1:30 a.m. to 1 a.m. Moura, though, says Kent was kept informed throughout the course of the legislation. "To say he was not included in any decisions that were made is totally inaccurate," Moura says. "He may not be happy with the 1 o’clock, but you can’t please everyone.")
Josh Miller, who owns the Hot Club and Trinity Brewhouse, and serves as president of the Downtown Merchants Association, is among those skeptical about the nightclub licensing effort. "You don’t punish the responsible if you enforce the existing ordinances," Miller says. "If the police feel they need it [the new licensing category] as a tool, I think it has to be fine-tuned, so it . . . doesn’t affect the responsible club owner."
Although concerns about the impact on live-music venues were allayed in the nightclub licensing law, "I still think there could be unintended consequences, having a negative impact," Miller says. "I think it’s a doubled-edged sword." As he notes, places that repeatedly break the law stress the process, so that other establishments suffer the consequences: "The responsible end up suffering with the irresponsible when something like this comes into effect."
BARNABY EVANS, the artist whose WaterFire installations have become an iconic signature for Rhode Island’s capital city, likens efforts to curb nightlife-related problems with the fight against terrorism: there’s so much that has to be done because of a relatively small number of troublemakers. Evans has seen this first-hand. "When the bars let out, usually after WaterFire, we do see a lot of craziness," he says, including the seeming appearance of drunken driving, and yelling and the throwing of bottles from passing cars. The situation has gotten so bad, Evans says, that his organization routinely hires a police officer to stand guard as WaterFire gear is dismantled in the early morning hours.
It’s this sort of misbehavior that led proponents like Michael Hogue of the Jewelry District Association and Dan Baudouin of the Providence Foundation several years ago to target nightlife-related problems in Providence. This effort gathered steam in 2000, partially as a response to the grisly carjacking slayings of two college students, although also as a misguided attempt to roll back the closing time for Providence bars and clubs, from 2 a.m. to 1 a.m. In 2001, proponents set their sights on banning anyone under 21 from being able to go to a nightclub that serves alcohol. Although each of these campaigns ended short of the specific goal, supporters -- a coalition that came to encompass city government, other neighborhood groups, Providence police and local universities -- was persistent enough to remain focused on its long-term goals.
A level of frustration is understandable. Anyone who has spent a fair amount of time in the Jewelry District at closing time, for example, has probably witnessed some obnoxious, loutish, and perhaps even violent behavior. Then again, although critics like Hogue, who resides in a chic Chestnut Street condominium, cite their support for vibrant nightlife, it remains open to question whether their vision for more restrained behavior jibes with the reality of life in an urban entertainment enclave. It’s also unfortunate that proponents of nightlife regulation, including the Cianci and Cicilline administrations, have responded with a prohibitionist approach, rather than one more in sync with the goal of promoting Providence as a destination city.
A logical place to start would be the logjam that results when the clubs and bars empty on weekend nights. As noted by Josh Miller, end-of-night problems seem less severe in other cities, like New York, that have later closing times, so people can leave over a longer period of time. "It’s the same phenomenon as a rush hour," Miller says of the status quo in Providence. "A lot of people are recognizing that now, and they may not be talking about it publicly, but they understand it as the root of the problem."
One of the obvious difficulties with keeping clubs open later is that the establishments would essentially be on their honor to stop serving alcohol at 2 a.m. But at this point, even considering a pilot problem to smooth the dispersal of clubgoers by keeping clubs open later seems out of the question -- a seeming reflection of the staying power of New England Puritanism and an aversion on the part of city officials to innovative thinking in this regard.
Instead, critics, after being rebuffed in eliminating under-21 nights, have focused their fire on thinning nightlife crowds by barring the entry of patrons after 1 a.m. Part of the rationale for this stems from the belief that an influx of people come from outside Providence, including Massachusetts and Connecticut, to make last call at nightclubs. "I would just encourage you to go to some of our nightclubs at 1 o’clock," says Cicilline, since detail officers report a substantial number of people arriving after that time. Yet if large numbers of people truly want to come to Providence for last call, the pending nightlife regulation will do nothing to prevent them from going to a bar instead.
Even some bar owners, like Carolyn Blake MacAndrew, of Blake’s Tavern on Washington Street, see under-21 dance nights as a big part of the problem. She draws a distinction between the younger patrons who go to see live music and those who attend dance clubs, describing only the latter group as problematic. "They’re all high on Ecstasy and running half-naked in the streets," says Blake MacAndrew, the vice president of the Downtown Merchants Association. Still, despite her criticism, she still believes that allowing bars and clubs to remain open later would help to alleviate problems, changing an equation in which police are greatly outnumbered by exiting club-goers. "Despite what a lot of people in their ivory towers may think, there are a lot of people getting out of work" late at night who then go for a drink downtown, Blake MacAndrew says. "Wouldn’t it be nice if they had more time to collect themselves and leave the establishment in a reasonable amount of time?"
It’s worth noting that the embrace of community policing by the Cicilline administration -- a long overdue situation in the city -- is already credited with diminishing the frequency of problems associated with nightlife.
In the past, "The kids we were speaking with were telling us it’s common knowledge that the drinking age in Providence is 18," says Lieutenant Timothy Lee, who oversees the downtown area. But a campaign that began last June -- employing underage volunteers, arrests of bartenders and underage drinkers, and other tactics -- has substantially reduced underage drinking, arrests for disorderly behavior, and the like, Lee says. "Is it completely handled? I would say, ‘No,’ " he adds, but police have delivered a message that underage drinking won’t be tolerated.
Incidentally, Lee notes that Michael Kent’s clubs "as a whole, do a very good job of enforcement." When underage volunteers were sent into a number of Kent’s clubs, "they weren’t served." The lieutenant nonetheless questions whether the Class N license goes far enough. Although he recognizes that the importance of under-21s to the live music scene poses another issue, Lee favors doing away with under-21 nights, since some underage club goers will invariably get access to alcohol. True enough. It’s also true, though, that people under 21, who can gamble and serve in the military, are probably not having that much difficulty getting access to alcohol even when they’re not in bars and nightclubs.
On the whole, Lee says, "I think the city as a whole will be better off with a more focused [licensing] effort. I think we have to consider more than just the nightclub owners in the downtown scheme of things. The nightclub business isn’t being shut down or forced out, it’s just being more regulated to try to make it more user-friendly to everyone." Like Cicilline and other supporters of the new regulation, Lee describes the pending 1 a.m. deadline for getting into clubs as a deterrent to a last-minute influx of intoxicated revelers to the city.
Kent, however, says that increasing the amount of regulation for a legitimate businessman like himself will offer an advantage to those fly-by-night operators who skirt the law, while bringing about more keg parties and other sorts of unregulated partying.
Similarly, Josh Miller, proprietor of the Hot Club and Trinity Brewhouse, mentions how his Budweiser salesman describes how sales went way up in South County bars and liquor stores after the URI campus went dry, "as if that’s going to make college kids stop drinking." It makes Miller wonder aloud, "What are the long-term effects when you become more prohibitive? It may be more unsupervised drinking with other problems . . . Is that solving the problem or is that just creating a more difficult problem?"
The police crackdown on underage drinking suggests the possibilities of what can happen when illegal behavior -- rather than the broader concept of nightlife -- is targeted for attention. A two-track approach -- enforcing the law against establishments that break it and thinning the end-of-the-night exodus of club-goers through later closing times -- offers promise for curbing many of the concerns cited by proponents of greater nightlife regulation. The question is, why aren’t they more fully considering it? |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
