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Aldermen Hesitate on Lighthouse Booze Ban
by zak stone | Mar 9, 2010 7:20 am
(13) Comments | Commenting has been closed | E-mail the Author
Posted to: City Hall, Parks, Morris Cove
Alderman Roland Lemar enjoys an occasional bottle of wine with his wife at Lighthouse Point Park. He called it “inappropriate” to ban booze there and have officers handing out tickets to couples and families relaxing the same way he does.
To East Shore neighbors and police, on the other hand, a few rowdy partiers are ruining the fun for everyone. They advocated a ban on all beer and wine, if it will help the police fight crime. They argued that police can use their discretion to root out the disruptive drinkers from the responsible ones.
Those two views emerged Monday night as the Legislation Committee of the Board of Aldermen met at City Hall to consider on a proposal by the Parks Department to ban beer and wine from Lighthouse Point Park.
After hearing testimony from neighbors and top East Shore cop Lt. Jeff Hoffman, pictured above beside Morris Cove Alderwoman Arlene DePino, aldermen voted to table the amendment until they can do more research. No one from the parks department showed up to speak on the proposal’s behalf.
The proposal would ban drinking everywhere in the park except for the carousel, when rented out private engagements.
Under current law, Lighthouse Point Park is the only park exempted by the city’s ban on public drinking. Thousands of responsible as well as disruptive drinkers – from New Haven to Springfield, Mass. – take advantage of the park’s unique status as a drinking destination on summer weekends and holidays.
However, in recent years drinking at Lighthouse has gotten out of hand, Alderwoman DePino testifed, partly due to the park’s increase in popularity. DePino’s constituents have reported “public urination on front lawns” and “changing out of wet bathing suits on sidewalks” by seriously drunken folks leaving the park. She advocated an alcohol ban as an “extra tool to foster public safety.”
Lt. Hoffman agreed. He said that he has “witnessed conditions in the park deteriorate” because of drinking. There’s more “chaos, danger, and volatility” with the increase of “binge drinking” parties and their associated domestic disputes and drunken driving, he said. The cops cannot do anything but “watch people drink and call the ambulance when someone is too drunk,” said Hoffman.
He admitted that calling an ambulance is not an “every day occurrence.” In the past two years, only eight people were carried away as a result of excessive drunkenness.
Some aldermen on the committee, including Lemar (pictured), Mike Jones, and Greg Dildine, expressed interest in solutions other than a ban. Lemar said that he when he visits the park he sees many “families and neighbors responsibly using alcohol” without having an “impact on their surrounding beachgoers.” He himself enjoys the occasional “bottle of wine at 7 p.m. on a Tuesday evening” at the park in the summer with his wife, he said.
He said that a ban should be put into place only if the city agrees that “there is no reasonable way” to consume alcohol responsibly on the beach. “Is that what we’re saying?” Lemar asked.
Hoffman said that he could not promise that such violations, however minor, would be ignored. Such drinkers would knowingly be “taking the risk” of getting fined $99, he said.
However, he said that drinking at an “under control event” with a “limited amount of alcohol use” is not the primary target of the proposal.
Hoffman said that he is not seeking to initiative a “ticket-writing campaign.” Having the ability to stop drinking before it gets out of hand would be a useful preventive measure, he said. Hoffman likened it to the way that police make decisions about pulling over speeders: Officers use their discretion to pull over vehicles that constitute a public safety hazard but usually ignore the cars traveling at two miles per hour above the limit.
Discretion?
John Cox, of East Shore Community Management Team, testified in support of the amendment. He vouched for Hoffman’s “track record” of appropriate discretion.
Cox said that he and his friends occasionally drink wine in the park. When Hoffman’s team cruises by, the officers never say anything to the undisruptive drinkers, even though they are violating the current drinking ban by having wine in parks other than Lighthouse Point. “Unruly young people,” on the other hand, have been reported and dealt with accordingly, Cox said.
Alderman Jones said that it seems difficult to decide which types of drinking will be permitted and which drinkers will be viewed as “undesirable”– possibly young people and minorities whose parties might not feature “wine and cheese.”
While he personally has no problem with “alcohol in every park in the city,” he said, he believes that all drinking should be held to the same legal standard.
Downtown Alderwoman Bitsie Clark agreed that there is “something disturbing” about such selective enforcement of the current law, under which cops already turn a blind eye to drinking at events like Elm City Shakespeare in Edgerton Park but enforce the drinking ban in other contexts. “Either a law is a law or a law isn’t a law,” she said.
Dildine asked if the police had considered other ways of controlling the crowds, by limiting drinking to certain areas or enforcing the current ban on hard liquor with citations. Hoffman responded that it is “virtually impossible” to tell someone, “Put down that hard alcohol but that beer’s OK.”
With such uncertainty over the issue of discretion, the committee opted to table a decision until a further meeting. The committee will wait until it can hear testimony from a parks department representative, gather more statistics on drinking violations in other parks, and research a historical explanation for Lighthouse Park’s legislative special status.
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Comments
posted by: William Kurtz on March 9, 2010 8:26am
I agree completely with Ms. Clark; it’s absurd to put a law into place with the explicit acknowledgment that it will be enforced selectively. Let’s get this straight: no drinking unless the police like you, or choose to ignore you. No excessive drinking, unless you can afford to hire out the carousel for your wedding or private function. So well-heeled people binge-drinking at a wedding are okay, somewhat less affluent ones drinking on the sand are not. Sorry, but this smacks of shameless elitism. I’m as in favor of civic order and decorum as anyone, but aren’t there already plenty of laws on the books to use against rowdy drunks and people changing their clothes on public sidewalks?
posted by: streever on March 9, 2010 8:28am
I vote we throw out the anti-drinking laws in parks entirely. What are we a bunch of puritans?
posted by: streever on March 9, 2010 8:32am
Seriously, has anyone ever seen the research, conducted by New Haven residents actually, that showed that people who drink are not more prone to violence, but more prone to behave per expectations?
Doesn’t that make the bans and zero-tolerance laws seem silly?
When people drink, they start looking for behavioral cues externally. If we foster a culture in which people can drink responsibly and are assumed to be in control of themselves, that is the way people will largely behave.
posted by: John Dattilo on March 9, 2010 9:40am
Why not continue to allow beer & wine for small groups, say up to 5 or 10 individuals.
After that a permit would be required signed by the Chief of Police or his designee in the permitting divison.
The District Manager would be aware when a permit is issued and can then dedicate the appropriate manpower to the park. It would also raise revenue either by the permit process or the infraction for violating it.
Small groups and couples would not be affected.
John Dattilo,
NHPD, Ret.
posted by: City Hall Watch on March 9, 2010 9:44am
Fewer laws. More personal responsibility. More freedom.
If you’re drunk and disorderly, you should be arrested. Other than that, you should be left alone.
That should be the standard on a lot of things in New Haven instead of this endless parade of new gotcha measures (all the cameras in the city, registering your alarm with the police department) or city expenditures because government people think New Haveners are incapable of looking after themselves (city ID, LCI inspecting and handing out free smoke detectors, etc.)
I wonder what would happen if the mayor and city leaders, including department heads used the same gusto to preach personal responsibility as they do with growing the reach of government.
posted by: Morris Cove Mom on March 9, 2010 9:51am
I think there should be a total ban on all drinking at Lighthouse Point Park, even inside of the Carousel Building. I think it should be all or nothing.
The trouble is who will enforce this, and how? To take a police officer away from doing more for the city, to put him at the beach to identify and ticket drinking, seems like a waste of police resources, when New Haven doesn’t have enough officers as it is.
But if we can find a way to do this, then ban it everywhere at Lighthouse, and enforce it with the same $99 ticket they’re going to start writing this Sunday at the alcohol-free St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Maybe these tickets can lower my taxes, and keep the riffraff away from my children.
And for those of you who think this is a non-issue, I say two things: one, spend an entire Saturday at this beach during the summer, then tell me what you think; and two, most beaches have alcohol bans throughout the state, so we are irresponsible NOT to have a ban.
posted by: cedarhillresident on March 9, 2010 10:58am
streever, City Hall Watch with ya both on this!! If I go to park for a BBQ with friends or the beach for the day. I want to relax! If I can not enjoy a cold one on a summer day off. I will go to a place I can.
I understand the frustrations of the community. I have it here with the baseball/soccer fields. But all I can do it just pick up the litter. And call the cops if I see something above and beyond suitable behavior. I mean if this community gets what they want then I want the same for the weekend soccer league in my area and I am sure that other community are the same issue. You would have to do it across the board. The Cove is no more special than any other community!
And if you do it across the board, you will lose revenue in this city because people will go elsewhere to enjoy their off days
posted by: Chuck on March 9, 2010 11:02am
Ditto City Hall Watch
I will add that I find the boards acceptance of wine quite funny. I’ve seen many a drunk that got that way from drinking wine regardless of the presence of cheese.
posted by: Mister Jones on March 9, 2010 5:14pm
Streever—are we a bunch of Puritans? No but our city was founded by folks for whom the Puritans were way too liberal!
City Hall—right on! “If you’re drunk and disorderly, you should be arrested. Other than that, you should be left alone.” We’ve got too many laws as it is. The solution to all our problems is not more laws. We can do just fine enforcing the ones we have.
posted by: Brian V on March 9, 2010 9:54pm
Streever:
You are wrong. You may have a “study by New Haven residents” that says alcohol doesn’t make people violent but, in the real world you can ask any cop or anyone in the bar business (like myself) and they will tell you unequivocally, that ALCOHOL CAN & DOES MAKE SOME PEOPLE VIOLENT -PERIOD. I heard of a study that says alcohol can even turn peace loving cyclists into road raging, bird flipping cyclists- imagine that!
People who are on their way to getting drunk & disorderly exhibit signs. This ordinance will give the police a tool to help keep them from going over the line into the disorderly category, when these signs show.
Why is Lighthouse the ONLY park in the city to allow it?
If you are going to allow it here then we need to open it up to every other park as well.
I would LOVE to ship all the drunken idiots from Lighthouse over to East Rock park on any given summer Saturday and see how long Roland is in favor of it then! Sip your wine while you are sitting on a broken 40-oz.
posted by: cedarhillresident on March 10, 2010 6:20am
Brian V,
They are already here!! Come to the weekend latin soccer games that where shipped here from the blvd. My guess is it is even more public then the issue at light house but we CAN NOT get cops here to stop all the same things plus, why are we any different????????? ohhh wait sorry where on the low income side of east rock, it is except able here right! We call the cops. there are day where people a traped in there driveways till the game is over beer everywhere being sold out of trunks please!!!!!!!!!
posted by: robn on March 10, 2010 8:23am
There are well behaved drinkers…
and badly behaved drinkers.
There are well behaved sober people…
and badly behaved sober people.
Ergo, the problem isn’t drinking; the problem is bad behavior. Solution, police it…fine according to cost.
posted by: Claudia Herrera on March 11, 2010 12:21am
This is an open family place, Families with small children running all over with out looking, The little guys are too busy playing and having fun and moms also too busy looking and running after the little ones.
There are places and time for everything. Commonsense is the Key.
Keep it simple. laws new and old are useless if you are doing the wrong things in the wrong places.
