Entertainment Commission and Cops Set to Square Off Over Club Violence

The Crime section of SFGate is running an article with the rather alarmist title "Summit Aims to Stem Bloodshed at SF Clubs" that is less interesting for the facts it reports - two shootings outside local clubs during New Year's Eve (and what was the party at the 9th Street warehouse, anybody got any tips?) and two cases of assault - than it is for what happens further down the column, when the police begin to complain that, because of the Entertainment Commission, they have less leeway in dealing with violence in clubs.

As Robert Davis, the executive director of the Entertainment Commission, points out in the article, the police are fully empowered to issue citations whenever they want, but they don't have the authority to impose new rules on clubs and bars, which is under the purview of the Commission. That's the real issue - when the police were responsible for regulating clubs, their basic solution was to close everything down, which is what led to the formation of the San Francisco Late Night Coalition and the Entertainment Commission. Reading between the lines of this article, it seems that the police are jockeying for a change that would return the authority for regulating clubs back to them.

What's really interesting, though, is the statement made by the police spokesman Sgt. Steve Mannina, who says "One of the common threads we see is that violence is happening very close to closing time or after." Strange, the same problem was plaguing England when they had a mandatory pub closing time of midnight, and then, when they liberalized the licensing laws, studies showed that there was a significant drop-off in violence.

Most of the chowderheads who commented on this article seem to think that the solution is more police, but maybe the real solution is to let San Francisco become a 24-hour city; then you wouldn't be dumping everyone, in whatever condition, into the streets all at the same time. One of the more insightful comments is that we no longer have a real club district that would make it easy for regular patrols to keep an eye on things; indeed, as gentrification has come to SoMa, it's forced clubs to exist in isolated pockets, often in pretty sketchy locales. Maybe liberalization of closing hours and zoning would do more to improve the overall vibe than throwing more cops (and more money) at the problem.

More on Extended Closing Times

Last night's blogger meetup concluded with only the party boys left at the bar - myself and Ted Strawser of the sfpartyparty. We got into a discussion about extended closing times for bars that was proposed by Terrance Alan of the SF Entertainment Commission and how we would like to put some grassroots muscle behind getting the legislation through. That bars close at 2AM in San Francisco is not only silly in comparison with other major American cities (even in Atlanta they don't close until 4AM), but it creates a lot of problems as large numbers of drunk people spill out into the streets at the exact same time every Friday and Saturday night. Resource competition becomes fierce as everyone is trying to get a cab at the same time, more drunks are put on the roads as they look for another party locale, long lines stretch down the block as folks queue up to get into afterhours clubs, and, in general, a large number of drunken people hit the streets of San Francisco all at once.

I remembered that Britain recently decided to change pub and club closing hours so that bars can now stay open 24 hours a day, rather than having to close at 11PM (pubs) or 2AM (clubs). The press declared that this would result in crazy drunkeness and that alcohol industry profits would soar. Well, as it turns out, by letting bars set their own hours, resulting in a staggering of closing times (so to speak), alcohol-related violence and public disorderliness have substantially decreased throughout Britain, and the drinks industries have not seen any substantial change in their profit numbers. Here's an article in The Telegraph from last November that looks at statistics gathered a year after the change in licensing laws, and another from The Independent. So, based on the British experience, it would seem that many of the problems currently associated with bars and clubs in San Francisco, most of which stem from large crowds of people pouring into the streets at the same time, could be solved by changing bar closing times, or even giving bar and club owners the power to set closing times for themselves. We already have bars that open at 6AM (like Twin Peaks and The Mix in the Castro), so why not let the bars decide for themselves what time they want to close based on what is economically viable for them?

Ted and I were finishing up our drinks around 9PM last night, and as we talked about this, we realized that if we were in New York we'd probably be making plans to get some dinner, then maybe finish off at a club (if it wasn't a school night for both of us). Instead, by the time 11PM rolls around, most people are ready to settle in because there's not that much time left in the evening. The whole cultural complexion of this city could be altered by making this one change, and I for one would love to see what happens.

New Call to Extend Closing Times to 4AM

According to this article in the Examiner Terrance Alan, in his role as a member of the Entertainment Commission, is once again trying to get the state legislature to change last call from 2AM to 4AM, a measure that was last considered in 2004. I think Terrance is completely right on this one when he says that the mass exodus of people from bars and clubs at 2Am is behind most of the noise and other complaints lodged against bars and clubs. Anybody who has rolled out of Drunk and Horny at 1.45 on a Saturday night knows about all the jacked-up people looking for something to do who then congregate on the sidewalk while they try to find out where the afterparty is. If bars closed at 4AM you'd have much more of a steady trickle between 1AM and 4AM, as Terrance points out, in addition to the fact that people tend to binge drink and emerge a lot more fucked up than if they were taking it in throughout the night (this was also confirmed by the British when they looked into extending closing times for pubs). Closing at 4AM would also alleviate the problems of cab hell that emerge when everybody is looking for a way home at the same time.

Also in the article, The Zebra Club in North Beach gets its license suspended after a deputy sheriff gets punched in the face, and the owner of Club 6 in SoMa (on 6th Street, one of the worst streets in SF), is issued a citation for noise.