Do Lakewood police even try to control rowdy bar crowds?

[Leo Wetula]

Throngs of drunk rowdy screaming bar patrons with no regard for nearby residents. Lot of these folks just get in their cars and drive away. Not a police officer or car in site....ever. There is something wrong with this picture. For policing to be this bad, it almost seems like officers must be following policy or orders.

[Mark Kindt]

Mr. Wetula,

I have written dozens-upon-dozens of posts on the topic of the growth of bars and liquor licenses in Lakewood.

I found almost zero interest in my articulated concerns. ---Virtually none among our local elected officials.

I stopped writing about the topic.

Rowdy bar crowds and accompanying dysfunction are accepted as normal here.

I have also noted multiple DUI fatalities on our streets.

I'm sure our public safety forces respond promptly and fully when called.

Mark

PS. I have also quoted and identified public policy documents on alcohol-density as indicators of urban decline.

I also took the time to consult with a former director of the Ohio Department of Liquor Control.

He noted to me that our city government receives notifications from the state and and has the authority to intervene in the administrative processes.

[michael gill]

Mr Wetula, do you mean last night after Ohio State beat Notre Dame (and at other specific, typically sports-related times), or do you mean as a constant problem?

And what neighborhood?

[Leo Wetula]

Thanks for your responses Mark and Michael.

Mark, I, along with sister Pam and a couple of our neighbors, also spent a lot of time addressing this issue about 10 years+ ago. We organized a public hearing at Lakewood Hall, etc. The only thing that helped the situation was the economic meltdown (and also the pandemic much later). I am old Lakewood. This is just par for the course during my lifetime.

Michael, this is a constant issue. Last night was particularly bad, but there shouldn't be any night like that in a civilized city and near a residential neighborhood (I can hear folks screaming right now). This is not the stadium and despite what some folks think it is not an entertainment district. It should not matter who is playing whom or who beat whom. Make the bars shut their windows, only allow in the number of folks permitted per the occupancy permit, don't let folks park illegally all over the place, cite businesses for noise, say something to roaming bands of people screaming at the top of their lungs, cite people for open container/public intoxication, pick up the drunk drivers after they get into their cars and start to drive, etc. This is no brainer stuff. Any city government that was concerned at all would park a police car on the street and/or have officers walk around. Basically get out the message that this behavior is not acceptable. But, of course, it is acceptable and even encouraged in Lakewood.

If the noise weren't bad enough, there have been gunshots, a drunk driver who HIT my house (really), cars parked directly in front of drive (completely blocking it), garbage in my yard, etc.

After I posted I was waited for responses from the Lakewood apologists. Again, I am old school Lakewood. Lakewood city government has always been like this and always will be. It is more than just the bars, it is a fundamental disrespect for citizens. But of course we are all just parrot how wonderful Lakewood is and what a great job our "leaders" are doing.

[Leo Wetula]

Sorry, forget, neighborhood is Detroit and Cordova/Bonnieview/Lauderdale/Edwards, etc.

[Mark Kindt]

Some of my 2023 posts on the outcomes of urban bar density for Lakewood are at this linK:

https://lakewoodobserver.com/forum/view ... 85#p193085

Two drinking establishments added to the DrugMart Plaza since these posts...

[Leo Wetula]

Thank you for the link Mark. I haven't followed the Observation Deck much in the past couple of years. Has anything improved, bar situation or otherwise (e.g., "civic culture") under our new mayor? Let me answer that: no. So why do people pretend it has?

[michael gill]

As I understand it, the "local option" to sell liquor is decided by voters at the precinct level. You could gather enough signatures to put the question on the ballot in your precinct, and let the voters decide whether it should be "dry." The number of signatures and votes at the precinct level is not large: check with the BOE to see how many people in your precinct voted in the last election. Nonetheles, this is of course a very big deal, with jobs and businesses that occupy Lakewood buildings at stake. My point is, if you are serious, stop expecting politicians to do something. Start knocking on doors and talking to neighbors.

[Leo Wetula]

Been there, done that. I have spent hundreds and hundreds of hours battling all sorts of Lakewood nonsense. At this point I have one foot out the door and the other will be following just as soon as I can wrap things up. Sometime in between my house getting broken into three times in a row last year (the police can't seem to find any record---imagine that) and the drunk driver hitting my house I decided it is no longer worth it.

And excuse me, stop expecting politicians to do something? Those politicians are public servants who literally work for and are paid by us. We shouldn't expect anything of them? That is just sad. How about this alternative? Lakewood politicians administer the city with the interests of the citizens in mind. I know it's a crazy concept, but there are theoretically places that aspire to and approach that lofty goal.

[Jim O'Bryan]

Been there, done that. I have spent hundreds and hundreds of hours battling all sorts of Lakewood nonsense. At this point I have one foot out the door and the other will be following just as soon as I can wrap things up. Sometime in between my house getting broken into three times in a row last year (the police can't seem to find any record---imagine that) and the drunk driver hitting my house I decided it is no longer worth it.

And excuse me, stop expecting politicians to do something? Those politicians are public servants who literally work for and are paid by us. We shouldn't expect anything of them? That is just sad. How about this alternative? Lakewood politicians administer the city with the interests of the citizens in mind. I know it's a crazy concept, but there are theoretically places that aspire to and approach that lofty goal.

Leo


Bar safety meeting, October 2005.

My first experience with this was at a BAR SAFETY MEETING at Mc'Carthy's Ale House "Home of the cheap beer" now El Carnicero. It was October 2005, when a group was fighting in that bar threw someone out the front window, and the fight continued on to the streets.

It was a meeting of desperation by City Council Member Kevin Butler, as the residents were starting to talk about turning their Ward dry. Something that is easily done by the vote of RESIDENTS. The neighbor on Cordorva, Bonnieview, Edwards, and farther were sick of where the bar business had gone. One senior resident spoke of sitting on his porch with a baseball bat waiting for drunks to pee or worse in his yard at night. Other people talking about car parties with drugs and sex in front of their homes. With party material often left behind on their lawns.

What the bar owners came up with is paying for patrols, extra police, and even clean-up of the neighborhoods. Everyone left happy, nothing ever happened.

Here we are.

Now as an old Lakewoodite Like almost everyone in this discussion. Let's look back. Lakewood has roughly the same number of establishments serving alcohol, as back in the 50s. Hard to believe but true. But we have nearly 250% more establishment space with patios, sidewalk eating and complete lack of enforceable occupancy numbers. Part 1 of the problem.

Occupancy used to be figure by square feet and parking spaces available. Not any longer. Parking spaces can be blocks away, and 5 bars can count the same parking space as possibly used for them. This all went to hell when they bent over backwards to make Mahall's transformation from family bowling to concert club, as the family that owned it had close ties with FitzGerald and Summers. It was during this time the same handful of people running Lakewood into the ground decided that Lakewood could be a destination party town instead of the safest city in America, 1971, and a great place to raise a family AND grow old. Got rid of the health department, in a cost saving move, and instantly the elderly were kicked to the curb. It was during this time that Michael Gill battled for the space at Edwards and Detroit. At the time the city wanted a parking lot there. Mr. Gill argued, it was not best use of space. This is when Mayor Tom George stood up at council and said those famous words, written by Law Director Brian Corrigan, "Edwards Park is Lakewood's "Field of Dreams" and it was needed for hundreds of Lakewood children to follow their dreams." Michael argued what about the residents...

Years later they would answer that question when good friends of Mayor Summer was awarded the property, at the end of a peaceful residential street for the Truck Park. A place that on an average night can be heard a block away. And on a sports night blocks away. No parking added, the residential streets for blocks becoming bar parking lots.

It was also during this time the Mayor and his handful of handlers decided to allow more and more businesses to use residential streets for business. McDonalds, Dunkin Donuts, CVS, Drug Mart, Social Security on and on an on, Lakewood residents loosing their peace and quiet to underwrite the businesses of Lakewood. Now it is all out of control. Lakewood's once peaceful streets with large front porches, and safe playing areas for kids, gone, replaced by a hundred different ways to slow visitors down on or residential streets as they rush to the bar and drive home drunk. The city is unsafe, and we did it to ourselves.

Now the second part of the problem, the world is more violent, and more on edge. People getting in fights and arguments that all too often end in death or someone getting shot. This was pointed out to Mayor Cain, when the same very small group was pushing to get rid of 5,000 residents to put up a strip mall at the end of Lakewood so they could walk to a Cheese Cake Factory. Again damn residents in the way, anything and everything for retail, and drinking was and still is their attitude. Their plan at that time was a mall stretching from Detroit Bridge all the way to West Clifton. It was pointed out that with more shops there would be more shoplifting, and crime like stolen cars, that follow malls anywhere they are built. That more strangers to the city would mean more litter, and more crime. They didn't care about the 7,000 people affected or the safety.

Today the Board of Education not only allows bars to be built and opened with a softball throw of schools, something that had been illegal, but they also joined the problem with allowing alcohol to be served and sold at school functions. After all if they are making money from it how could they complain.

Another interesting problem here, is that business here are supported by residents far more than in other cities. Coventry is a perfect example; Coventry is a SID Special Interest District, where the businesses in that district pay for a majority of clean-up, improvements, safety and even parking. It was the SID that built the multi-level parking in the center, not the residents. When suggested to DowntowN area, Birdtown, and or Madison Village, they say no thank you, we prefer playing with residential dollars. This should end.



What to do?

Luckily for Lakewood, the city was never built on retail or bar business, or even commercial business. We have always made our bones, except in the last 20 years by being the safest city, with great schools, in the county. We can go back there, and it becomes very easy.

Re-introduce tight occupancy permits, based on commercial parking, and square feet. Also increase ticketing of people causing trouble in the city.

But what do I know?

What to do?

Police are getting harder to find, though Lakewood has been hiring some needed. The bars will never step up with the kind of safety and patrolling needed to make the city safe. OR the residents could vote their Ward dry, as they have threatened in the past.

The sad fact is the "power brokers" in Lakewood decided in secret to destroy the family based economy to something we are not, a Cedar Point for drunks. We need to get all business off side streets, and we need for Lakewood businesses to stand on their own and add to the community of Lakewood, not just make money off of us.

Perhaps Three Arches could part with some of our money to keep Lakewood safe and healthy, after all most of the board drove us here.

.

[michael gill]

Leo,

If by "one foot out the door" you mean you are leaving Lakewood, good luck and best wishes.

To be clear, when I say stop expecting politicians to do something, I mean specifically stop expecting them to deal with the clientele of bars in a city where bars are a big part of the economy, where alcohol is legal.

You can do something about it.

If by "been there, done that" you mean you have gathered signatures and put the local option on the ballot, then apologies, I missed that.

Did you?

I moved to Edwards Ave just 100 or so feet from Detroit Ave in 1999, so I've been here through Panini's, McCarthy's, etc, and now the truck park. Believe me, I am well familiar with the behavior of bar patrons.

Have you put your precinct's local option on the ballot?

[Bill Call]

Perhaps Three Arches could part with some of our money to keep Lakewood safe and healthy, after all most of the board drove us here.

.

The $35 million in the Three Arches Foundation, ( fully funded by the people of Lakewood), is reserved for subsidies for the Cleveland Clinic and the hobbies of the self appointed board members.