Pub crawls and neighborhoods
I started my day with penny Guinness stouts at 6 in the morning.
Well, actually, I drank a cup of coffee and watched others do the drinking. I was at No Idea Tavern on South Hanover Street, where that special bled into a another special that later today will launch a four-bar pub crawl (money raised is supporting a local elementary school).
At left, Megan Brooks, 22, Catonsville, and Jason Royer, 24, Halethorpe, start the morning with a drink, in a picture by The Sun's Kim Hairston.
A stabbing a few weeks ago after a pub crawl along Fort Avenue has rewnewed discussion on whether such events can and should be regulated. South Baltimore neighborhood groups are seeking permits, while bar owners say it's impossible to regulate or permit people from hopping from one place to another. I'll have a more detailed story on this hot topic on Thursday.
The liquor board might try a compromise by requiring any liquor license holder to notify the board whenever it sponsors an event involving more than one licensee. But trying to regulate an impromptu party or even a pub crawl organized by a person would be next to impossible.
Neighborhood residents have legitimate concerns about bands of rowdy, drunken people roaming through neighborhoods, breaking planters and being loud in the early afternoons. Some are responsible, such as the Irish Stroll in Federal Hill this past weekend that attracted up to 3,000 poeple. Organizers hired extra police and paid to clean up the streets.
But the stabbing on Covington Street involving the Hitmen bar crawl -- which raised money for a flag football team -- prompted many concerns. While I was out at No Idea, bar owners and patrons said the same thing: it comes down to personal responsiblity. Don't overserve, for the bartenders, and act reasonable, for those indulging.
Categories: Confronting crime, Neighborhoods, South Baltimore
Comments
"money raised is supporting a local elementary school"
LMAO!
Posted by: Tomato Head | March 17, 2010 12:04 PM
Bravo! In complete agreement on the apparently widely held notion that public safety depends upon personal responsibility.
Have to question though the concept that serving “penny Guinness stouts” is a “responsible” idea at any time. Imagine how inebriated any of us would be after throwing down just 25 cents on the bar?
As for those "responsible" promoters of the Federal Hill Irish Stroll; while they may indeed have hired additional security and paid to have the streets cleaned, the crowd of 3,000 that you cite this event as having attracted required deployment of ten additional Southern District patrol officers at tax payer expense merely for control purposes.
Would any objective, reasonable observer consider it "responsible" to require redeployment of a limited number of law enforcement personnel away from other neighborhoods regularly subject to violent crime, for the sole purpose of further enriching a few bar owners?
Posted by: FaxMam | March 17, 2010 12:45 PM
Let these bars raise money within the walls of their own establishments, not out on the side walks or in the streets. There should be no reason for the police dept to provide additional manpower, unless the bar/organizer is paying their wages, not the taxpayer. I live in the Riverside Park area, and walking down Fort Ave on that day was unpleasant to say the least. Drunk people up and down the streets; I had to stop some drunk from running into me because he was too intoxicated to look where he was going! Find a more useful way (without alcohol) to raise money.
Posted by: Dave | March 18, 2010 8:47 AM