The Observation Deck

I wanted to start a new topic, although I was inspired by Mr. Warren's take in the "historic house" thread.
Let's be honest. "Cheap ass beer" as Mr. Warrren aptly describes it, IS Lakewood's stock and trade. Various retail ventures come and go, but a liquor license in Lakewood is a no-brainer.
It seems to me liquor licenses can be used five ways.
1. "Mass quantity" puke parlors for the slightly post-pubescent crowd. No need to name them. We know who they are. Been there, and will be there, forever.
2. Neighborhood "joints." Beer and sandwiches and the game on TV Populated mostly by regulars, responsible local management.
3. Popular restaurants, where the food is at least as important as the liquor.
I think West End Tavern, the place that used to be Radu's, etc.
4. Entertainment spots. For this I need out of town examples. Savannah's in Westlake, Club Isabella over on the east side. People will travel to these places to see an Ernie Krivda perform, and since there's often a cover, there's less to spend on "mass quantities.
5. True "destination" restaurants. Think 3 Birds or the very chic new Pier W. They can draw from around the area. These places don't even have to be expensive, just good. I know a few people who will come in from the outer burbs to get some Greek at Nikko's.
Now, it seems to me that a worthy goal would be to encourage more 4s and 5s, or at least more 3s, and gradually reduce the number of 1s. Also look to concentrate 4s and 5s. Lakewood has a few good dining spots, but they're miles and miles apart. Imagine if you could stroll a five block area with 12 good restaurants and four places with live music.
Of course, those places would need parking, too, but I think Lakewood would have more money coming in, with less puke going out.
Just my take. Take from it what you will.

Joan-

While I haven't been to the HiFi and haven't gone to the Phantasy, those spots & the Winchester serve as concert venues that draw "outsiders." The music offered in those venues is not exactly my cup of tea, but we frequently see lines of people waiting to get in.

Sullivan's also draws pretty big crowds for some of the bands that play out on weekends.

I used to regularly go to the Riverwood to hear music - they used to have great Blues & Swing bands, but I must admit that I've fallen out of the habit of going out to hear music on weekends.

When we moved to our present location, we were happy that we could walk to Player's, to the Warren Road Tavern, Cedarwood (long gone) and a Chinese restaurant. We still love Player's and the Warren Road Tavern, but that's not long for this world. We won't be getting any of their great soups from Walgreen's.

There a deep psycho-geography to bars and their placement in communities.

While dl Meckes takes issue with Stephen Calhoun’s broad point about self-medication and alcohol in the “Historic Lakewood House Teardownâ€Â￾ thread, I will post here my suggestion to shift the loaded term from medication to self-maintenance, and apply that to the use of alcohol and any drug for that matter, including caffeine.

We all bear anxieties and construct protocols – some effective and others not – to keep on keeping on. Hence we all construct self-maintenance programs with people, places, and things. And here we are in Lakewood attempting to know our city through the self-maintenance protocols homies, wash-ashores and outside observers propose and contest.

Although I only began to assemble impressions on a peek-a-boo crawl down Madison with Calhoun, I did speak over the next week with three twenty something Lakewood informants about the differences between the bars on Madison and Detroit, hoping to encourage them to write for the paper.

As Ms. Roberts suggests, I do believe that “Lakewood and Liquorâ€Â￾ presents a huge domain for inquiry and analysis. We are only beginning.

By way of personal background, my father owned a restaurant and bar in NYC, Gracie Square on First Avenue and 91st Street. I worked there for quite a few years in my teens and twenties and learned a great deal about the effects of alcohol, human relations and urban social dynamics.

In my experience with beverages and people, I have observed places that serve alcohol typically create a participatory platform that invites the consumer to uncork emotions, including pain and sadness. In the clannish recoil to an alcohol-soaked participatory mystique in dark womb-like space where everyone knows your name, I have felt my isolation and sadness morph fleetingly into a sense of fun and companionship.

But sure enough, this can also happen in the light of Bella when I sip green tea with Lakewood Observer homies, the latest protocol in my own self-maintenance program.

Kenneth Warren

Kenneth Warren wrote:In my experience with beverages and people, I have observed places that serve alcohol typically create a participatory platform that invites the consumer to uncork emotions, including pain and sadness. In the clannish recoil to an alcohol-soaked participatory mystique in dark womb-like space where everyone knows your name, I have felt my isolation and sadness morph fleetingly into a sense of fun and companionship.

A (male) friiend's theory: People in the average corner bar are better company and more likely to offer a few hours of human contact than those at the average Starbuck's. Agree?
Also to Ms. Meckes. My list, of course, didn't pretend to be inclusive. I forgot about Sullivan's and Players, both fine establishments, and heaven knows I have nothing against rock and roll. Even the corner joints are A-OK with me (having consumed a taco or two at the Merry Arts). Iit's the "category 1" bars, the ones that seem bent on pouring as much beer as possiible down 22 year old gullets in the shortest possible time, that seem to be at the root of our discontent.
The tricky thing is, even if somehow we could replace Mc-whatevers with a Michelin three-star restaurant, the restaurant would STILL want to take the historic house for parking. What then?

Ms. Roberts-

I meant only to add to your list.

We used to enjoy going to establishments in the Flats for lunch when places were uncrowded and the view was unobstructed. I'm not the target market for the "New Flats."

I love the bars when I can enjoy some beverages, some food and some conversation. There are a few places that I won't visit when they are loud and packed. Like most people, I don't want to live next door to "category 1" bars.

Your question is a good one. How many historic homes do we have left near or on Detroit or Madison? Who will be willing to foot the bill for their upkeep or for moving them?

Certainly, the "category 1" bars (while they're hot) are a P.I.T.A. and drain our city's resources in terms of police calls and the like.

There's also the question of state and local zoning laws and how far we can go to regulate what we do with commercial property and development.

I have no objection to the vision and experience of a vibrant nightlife on either Detroit or Madison. Let each simmer with a fine, safe and sometimes tipsy order of ineffable urban human artistry.

I am no prohibitionist. In fact, I pine for the glorious Saturday night/Sunday morning parade of characters looking to sober up at the Detroiter, circa '84-5.

In speaking to a former Detroit Avenue bar owner about the models and cycles in the bar business, he informed me, much as Ms. Roberts has described level one bars, that the cheap drink/high volume of consumption model inevitably turns the establishment into "a punch palace."

Hiring off duty law enforcement officers is one way the punch palace begins to turn things around. Then the price of drinks needs to go up to limit over-consumption.

In speaking last week to a Lakewood police officer about his experience of enforcement among the bars along the Detroit strip, I learned in his estimation that the current manifestation of McCarthy’s classifies as a "punch palace."

Today I spoke to a twenty-something informant, who admits to more than 100 visits to McCarthy’s. He said, “It’s packed. The big draw is dollar drafts. There are a lot of fights over the competition to ‘get some.’

By this, I understood him to mean that young males are competing for females.

“It’s getting worse,â€Â￾ he continued. “My friends are always getting into fights there. The outsiders get into it with people from Lakewood. It’s not Lakewood on Lakewood violence. It’s gotten to the point where there’s a bunch there who think they’re thugs. They think they’re street. It’s not your typical Irish pub anymore.â€Â￾

He mentioned that a lot of rap music is played, which in his estimation has the effect of making the boozy boize think they are rough and ready.

That’s the capture.

I understand the bar was recently sold. Perhaps the business model might shift. Or perhaps not. Again, I would suggest that you check the scene out for yourself and speak to people to find out the particulars of the current manifestation of the nightlife. Your experience and informants may suggest another reading of the action.


Kenneth Warren

I respond here to Charyn's excellent post originally found in the topic, Historic Lakewood House teardown?.

Yes, 'medicate' is a loaded term. People drink for various reasons, even a wide variety of reasons. For example, the 'puking palace patron' expresses an unseemly behavior but may not be drinking because they're anxious.

"Does number of bars (which should be better defined IMHO) per capita correlate the socio-economic condition of a (this) community?"

A superb question. In fact, if the number of bars per capita is high, ( compared to cities of similar size,) what would be the suggestive correlations?

I don't know. It's a cliche that the working class is 'hard drinking'. I am thinking about where Lakewood residents who drink like to drink. Home is one place. My intuition is bars in Lakewood are in someways correlated with working class anxiety.

***

shouldn't we establish that there is a causal relationship, and what that relationship is, before we try to understand its implications?

In the best world, yes! And, my speculative ruminating about implications is couched 'as if' there is a causal relationship. There is not any research I can refer to defend my presumption of causality. On the other hand, I can think of a number of great religions that haven't established the causal relationships prior to considering implications...it's the garden variety cognitive position. Right? We don't live in a world where we usually proceed after the causes have been figured out.

It would be an interesting study to understand the demographics of Lakewoodites going to the bars, and how those numbers truly correlate to the number of persons feeling a heavy level of stress as well as the source of the stress.

Yes.

In my personal opinion I think you generalized to quickly and too easily without even the benefit of an established hypothesis beyond your own socio-political agenda.

My socio-political agenda no doubt biases my speculations. The hypothesis isn't very controversial. My assuming it's true, as you smartly point out, is not credible.

My point being - economics IS a primary deterministic force for many people - a point that should be kept well in mind should you decide to embark upon any formal research of this subject matter.

You raise an interesting philosophical question here. Were anyone to investigate the 'force' of economics as a deterministic feature, how might positive findings demonstrate those features are primary against all other features; (and features in different domains just to complicate the problem!).

But, what I admitted was that I cannot by way of my prejudices reduce economic behavior to the 'socio-biological'. In other words, certainly survival is in the biological domain, and economics writ at the individual level is tangled with 'behavior-biology'. I'm not only too biased to make them equivalent, I can't see how they could be made equivalent. This is all I meant and it's a rarefied position--at least it is too explain it.

***

Off topic.

Your former posts, however, were written with an air of authority and in an assertive nature that would lead a reader with the impression that you, as a researcher, held these posits to be hard fact.

I couldn't be a researcher, even in the modest and speculative and indulgently independent way that I am, if the prime directive--for me--wasn't required to be: tentative in any and all provisional judgments.

As for readers being impressed--ever--with my authority about anything?Well, it's a common enough error people who don't know me well make. I'm a charlatan. The only authority I'm interested in being granted comes from those who know me well.

There's a problem with trying to tie the number of bars to the socioeconomic condition of Lakewood (or any other community). It's not really our call.
As I understand it, the number of liquor licenses is state-determined, by population, I believe. It isn't that Lakewood has so many bars for a city of 60,000 people. It's that everything in Lakewood is jammed so close together that it SEEMS like there are more of them.
But here's the key. Look at Westlake. Probably a comparable number of liquor licenses per capita, but they're taken up by the likes of Max & Ermas, TGIFridays, and Mr. O's favorite spots in Crocker Park. Ditto for North Olmsted, etc. Fairview, when I look at it, has a LOT of bars, but it seems like more of them are the West End Tavern-type restaurant/bar combo.

My question is, if McYouKnowWhats was recently sold, as claimed here, wouldn't it be nice if that liquor license was used for another 3 Birds or Nikkos or Players or Sullivans? Is there anything the city can do to noodge things in that direction? I know we can't pick and choose who gets the licenses, that's out of our hands, but isn't there some way to encourage a "higher calling" for the licenses allocated to our city?

I would suggest that we can accomplish a great deal in terms of the mix of establishments by reviewing our current building codes, law enforcement policies etc.

It seems to me that many people here yearn for the 'days of old' where there was less rabble-rousing and more "socially-acceptable" gatherings at the local watering holes. As I recall those days myself, the one aspect that has ALSO changed is the visibility of the local police. Whether that is due to a decrease in the level of patrol & enforcement or number of officers, I don't know.

What I do know is that when I was 22 I wouldn't dream of trying to drive intoxicated in Lakewood, nor would I dream of wandering around like a drunken fool... I would surely be stopped - often multiple times. I remember on the ~2 mile drive from one end to the other at bar time I would see no less than 4 cars patrolling and sometimes more. Frequently I'd see people stopped. It was a strong part of the Lakewood Brand of the 80s - I simply don't see that level of visibility anymore.

I also know that building owners were held to account on the conditions of their buildings - their outside appearance, signage, interior safety, etc. From my experience I can tell you that the owners of the 'puke palaces' typically don't want to spend any more than they must to stay compliant. Make them spend a few bucks to keep the place clean and safe and they will likely take it out on the customers that are causing the problems in the first place.

I believe we can effect a change in what is in our city through enforcement and/or review & updating of local ordinances; however, we recall that to everything there is a price.

My question is: Is Lakewood ready to pay for the kind of community that it wants?

Peace,
~Charyn

I believe nostalgia for the old neighborhood, for ethnic, family traditions rooted in working class behavior and traditions can draw people who have headed West into more clearly stratified middle class enclaves to return for drink in Lakewood bars, while putting their strive drive at ease.

Bob Buckeye noticed this trend, while visiting and drinking on the West End this past November.

I have noticed this trend to retain social ties to the "old neighborhood" persists in Roman Catholic parish churches, even through the person has left for western pastures. Eventually the ties no longer seem to bind. But for a time effort to hold onto something from the old neighborhood root persists.

Lakewood is filled with various amenities and opportunites that invite homage to a past through a one shoe on, one shoe off approach to straddling places.

During an anthropological inquiry conducted in the Merry Arts on a Saturday afternoon in May, I was quite surprised that most customers were from outside Lakewood, several had moved West, particularly to Rocky River, but had returned to drink in a Lakewood place where everybody knows your name.

Incidentally, Stephen Calhoun is not alone in his impressions.

An Anonymous academic links “the shame of drinkingâ€Â￾ to anxiety over various social categories and hierarchies.

“For me, the shame of drinking was tied to anxiety about these multiple exposures of class, family, and gender -- specifically, exposures within academe. A common fear, among academics willing to talk about it, is the fear of being exposed, found out. More subtly ranked than the military, the academy bullies us into knowing our places -- firstor secondor third-rate scholarship, institutions, publishers, minds, students. University life can't cause alcoholism, but it can perfectly organize and synchronize its habits and fears. The more I drank, the more I believed I was only "passing," in every sense of the word. Drinking washed down the fear and then left it on my breath.â€Â￾

For more:

http://chronicle.com/free/v48/i34/34b00701.htm

The nexus of alcohol, “working-classâ€Â￾ and “medical inspectionâ€Â￾ surface in “The Letters of Captain Ferdinand Belmont of the Chasseurs Alpins:"

“It is here we realize the abominable action of alcohol on the working-class population of towns and even those of the country. At the medical inspection it is indeed a lamentable spectacle to see these capital fellows of twenty-six or twenty-eightâ€â€￾ miners of the Loire or day-labourers from everywhereâ€â€￾with ulcerated stomachs, fatty hearts, or poisoned nerves, and who are manifestly incapable, even when desires and will-powers are adequate, of performing the task now set them. What a scandalous curse that corrupting alcohol is! And what a crime these young men commitâ€â€￾irresponsibly, unfortunatelyâ€â€￾ against their families and descendants, against their country and themselves!

At their age, between twenty-five and thirty, which ought to be the flowering time of the physical and moral being, they are already shattered, almost old men, morally and physically slaves of their vices, socially useless, if not dangerous."

For more:
http://www.greatwardifferent.com/Great_ ... der_01.htm

Kenneth Warren

When I was young, my Dad owned a bar in Eastlake. There were a number of hotels that wanted to have bar/restaurants on-premises. They were significantly larger financial vehicles than the single bar/burger place like my dad ran. As such, there was significant scrutiny of the smaller establishments. An incident of gambling or under-age drinking can easily cost a liquor license, which can then be awarded to a more "desirable" establishment.
Lakewood could play that way if they wanted to. I think I am glad we don't. While we all want a civilized city, scrutiny can become excessive to the point that it closes-down a bar, costing a family a livelihood. No, that did not happen to us, but it easily could have.
Around the turn of the last century there was a woman named Jane Jacobs. She was a pioneering social worker who moved into some dicey sections of New York City to be among the people she studied. One of her observations was that good bars make a good neighborhood. It may be bars, coffee houses or restaurants. The key factor was pedestrian traffic. Not the 22-year-olds puking in the gutter, but the people walking to and from the establishments. when decent people walk the streets in sociable numbers, indecent people either behave or leave. I don't mean vigilantes. I mean regular citizens stepping our for a bite or a drink or an ice cream or movie or a class or a read.
A critical mass of the afore-mentioned 5s, 4s, 3s, and maybe even some 2's that contribute to healthy foot traffic, even if the districts are not contiguous are not a bad thing. Maybe a move up-market would be welcome. The main thing that will drive that move is $. As the weather warms-up, vote with your feet and your wallet. Support the establishments you like with a walk to the corner. It is enlightened self interest.

Mr.Babcock.

You sound like a decent individual. I would doubt that your father ran a "punch bar" in Eastlake, but if he did, he deserved to be run out of town.
The worst people in the world can always hide behind, "I'm just a simple businessman, trying to support my family."
My comments were, I hope, carefully made to not include the average guy who runs an average corner bar.
On the other hand, if you're using a fire hose to pump cheap beer into 20 year-olds, then disgorging them at 2 a.m. to create havoc in the streets, you're not doing our city any favors, and we really don't care how many kids you're putting through college.
Do decent folks crowd out the punch bars, or vice versa? I'm sure we could find evidence on both sides.

I walk when I can, but when I need to get there faster I like to take my trusty bike. It's one of the most efficient machines known to man!

PS -- it would be nice to see more bike racks around town in general, rather than using a tree or a meter. . .