Canton cracks down on unruly bar crowd
Bars, residents hire off-duty police to curb unruly crowds
By Julie Turkewitz Sun Reporter
Residents and bar-goers on Boston Street will see new faces - and more police uniforms - in Canton this week. Two off-duty police officers will begin patrolling the nearby Northshore at Canton townhouse community Wednesday, and instead of the usual bouncers or security guards, Good Love Bar, a Boston Street hangout, has already hired two of its own off-duty officers. Huckas, a sports bar and hookah lounge, has also agreed to hire uniformed officers, according to officials.
After years of complaints about rowdiness spilling out onto Boston Street, the two bars agreed to pay for officers as a concession to residents. The endeavor, however, is expensive, costing bars hundreds of dollars a week and raising questions about who should be responsible for the actions of partyers pouring into the street.
"We get 3,000 people coming on the weekends, all drunk, who don't live here," said Leigh Ratiner, the former Northshore president who helped lead an effort to step up Boston Street security. "People with guns, people who pee on your geraniums, people who scream in the street."
The idea is that off-duty officers will more effectively deter unruly and violent behavior than typical bouncers. The officers retain police authority, carry guns and wear uniforms.
"It's different from having your traditional rent-a-cops," said Councilman James B. Kraft, whose Southeast district includes Canton.
Verbal sparring between the bars and neighborhood has been going on since at least 2001, according to city documents. The area around Good Love Bar and Huckas is saturated by bars and homes. On Boston Street, there are at least seven establishments with liquor licenses in approximately one block, and the 46th Legislative District has close to 60 percent of all city liquor licenses, said Ratiner, who is also the chairman of the Baltimore City Liquor Advisory Committee.
Residents' complaints are plenty: beer bottles through car windows, blocked streets, fights, screaming and drunken driving. In the past five years, Ratiner said he has received about 6,000 e-mails from Northshore residents distressed by bar patrons' behavior. A friend recently videotaped a man leave a bar, climb into a black sport utility vehicle, run into a female pedestrian and keep driving. "I have that on film," Ratiner said. "And that kind of thing just keeps happening."
Northshore residents and bar owners will foot the bill for the officers. Northshore will pay about $70,000 a year for its off-duty duo, who will work three nights a week. For the city, which is facing a police shortage, this is a way to increase security without having to use government funds. But for bars - which pay high rents and often change hands every few months - the added cost can hurt.
Jason Sanchez, who has owned Good Love Bar for 11 years, has had a pair of off-duty officers at his bar three nights a week for more than a month. He pays them $150 a night, far more than he ever paid a bouncer. The $450-a-week expense has had a crippling effect on his finances, he said, especially after he made the decision in February to close the bar four nights a week to appease complaining neighbors."It's costing me a fortune," he said. "It's a tough situation right now for all the business owners on Boston Street."
Chief liquor inspector Samuel T. Daniels Jr. said laws are unclear on how much responsibility bars have for surrounding areas. City law says bars are responsible for loitering patrons up to 100 feet from their property line, but when it comes to actions besides loitering, it's unclear how much legal responsibility bar owners bear. Daniels said it's rare for bars to hire off-duty officers.
The hiring of the officers raises questions about the appropriate way to handle unruly bar patrons. Patrick Russell, who owns Kooper's Tavern and two other establishments in Fells Point, said he thinks Boston Street is having the same rowdiness problems Fells Point had 10 years ago. In Fells Point, the solution was to attract a calmer clientele, he said, part of which meant banding together with residents and other businesses to push out Club 723, a megabar that lured a young party crowd with 25-cent beers and eventually lost its liquor license.
Ratiner and Kraft insist they aren't trying to drive Boston Street's bars - some of which have been in place since long before Northshore was built - out of business. They just want to scare off unruly patrons with stepped-up security. Ratiner is the head of the new Boston Street Association, a coalition of local businesses and neighborhood groups, and he said he hopes that soon the coalition can collectively pay for the officers, instead of bars and residences doing it on their own.
He also wants to work with the bars to help them find a more sedate crowd, he said.
"The strategy is to make it uncomfortable for lawbreakers to continue to use this neighborhood as a hangout," he said. "And they will eventually go somewhere else. And when they go somewhere else, we will help the bar owners try to find alternate patrons."
