It started as a conversation about banning alcohol at Lighthouse Point. Suddenly the discussion was whether to start letting people drink in all city parks.
Allan Appel File Photo
That was the course of the debate in City Hall on Monday night, as the Board of Aldermen took up a bill to ban alcohol at Lighthouse Point Park.
A lively discussion ensued, until West Rock Alderman Darnell Goldson flipped the script.
Goldson’s proposal: Instead of asking if we should ban alcohol at Lighthouse Point, the only park where it’s currently legal, why don’t we consider allowing booze in all city parks?
That curveball ended up sending the whole ordinance amendment back to committee, where aldermen will again discuss banning alcohol from Lighthouse point — or allowing it elsewhere.
Monday’s meeting marked the latest step in the proposed booze ban’s controversy-filled path, which began at a meeting of the Board of Parks Commissioners nearly a year ago.
The plan is the brainchild of parks Commissioner and East ShoreAalderwoman, Arlene DePino, in whose ward Lighthouse lies. She says the neighborhood suffers from the presence of inebriated park-goers in the summertime. East Shore top cop Lt. Jeff Hoffman has said that drunken picnickers are out of control in the park. “Binge drinking” is causing “chaos” and “danger,” he told an the aldermanic Legislation Committee in March.
Thomas MacMillan Photo
On Monday night, Hoffman looked on from the gallery as the Board of Aldermen debated the booze ban for nearly an hour.
DePino kicked off the discussion with a request for the support of her colleagues. On busy summer weekends, the park is full to capacity by 10 a.m., she said. “Drinking starts early in the morning.” By 4 or 5 p.m., the park is “bursting at the seams,” and out of control, she said.
DePino urged her colleagues to “be proactive rather than reactive. … I want to see a tragedy avoided.”
West River Alderman Yusuf Shah was the first to respond, with opposition. “To me, it stinks of elitism,” he said. The law will affect only people without backyards, who have no place to go to enjoy a responsible drink outside, he said. The law will also be difficult to enforce, Shah said. Those sentiments were echoed by a number of other aldermen.
Goldson asked: Don’t laws already prohibit public drunkenness?
East Rock Alderman Roland Lemar, chair of the Legislation Committee, responded that those laws are not strong enough. The police department “doesn’t have the tools to address” public drunkenness, he said. Police can’t “address problem behavior before it reaches a criminal level.”
Hill Alderwoman Andrea Jackson-Brooks later suggested that aldermen focus instead on “getting the public drunkenness ordinance up to par.” Instead of banning booze, the city should be “beefing up” existing laws, she said. Other aldermen expressed similar sentiments.
“There is something just kind of wrong about this,” said Downtown Alderwoman Frances “Bitsie” Clark. Drinking is forbidden in all other city parks, but “I venture that all drinkers in this room” have had drinks in city parks, Clark said.
Yale Alderman Mike Jones said he opposes the proposed ban. He said he is concerned that it would become a “complaint driven” process that would disproportionately affect minorities and young people and encourage binge drinking before entering the park.
“For me this is really about losing civil liberties,” said Fair Haven Alderwoman Migdalia Castro. “Are we creating a prison without walls?” The booze ban would “would exclude those who can’t afford other luxuries,” she said. The next thing will be “you’re going to figure out how to take away the air that we breathe. … What else can you take away?”
Fair Haven Alderwoman Maureen O’Sullivan-Best rose to support the bill. Drinking in the park draws police resources away from other parts of the district, she said. The booze ban would not be a violation of civil liberties, she said, responding to Castro. “If that’s the concern, we should look at opening up drinking in all parks.”
A short time later, Goldson stood to do just as O’Sullivan-Best suggested. He moved an amendment to the proposal that would extend the same drinking rights Lighthouse Park enjoys to all other parks.
“This is the right argument,” said Lemar. If one is to opposed banning booze at Lighthouse Point, one has to consider allowing drinking in one’s own neighborhood park, he said. “This is the intellectually honest response to it.” But, it’s not appropriate to make such a change without holding public hearings, Lemar said.
Two other aldermen voiced opposition to Goldson’s amendment before Hill Alderman Jorge Perez stood to say he found Goldson’s proposal very interesting. He proposed recommitting the original ordinance amendment to committee, along with Goldson’s additional amendment.
That would send “the whole kit and kaboodle” back to committee, summarized board President Carl Goldfield.
“Will this stop the conversation?” asked Newhallville Alderman Charles Blango, hopefully.
“No,” said Goldfield.
Goldson withdrew his amendment because of a technicality in the rules of order, but was assured that his proposal would be discussed when the matter went back to committee.
The motion to recommit the ordinance amendment to committee passed by a roll call vote. “Yes, please, yes!” said Blango when it was his turn to vote.
“It passed, thank God,” he muttered when it was over.
Goldson said after the meeting that he moved his amendment to address the argument by booze ban supporters that Lighthouse Point suffered from an exception to the rule forbidding alcohol in city parks. “Maybe we should give it to everybody,” or at least call people together to talk about it, Goldson said.
He said he’s still opposed to banning beers at the beach. “I don’t like taking away rights,” he said. People shouldn’t be punished because of a few irresponsible “knuckleheads,” he said.
The booze ban is now headed back to the Legislation Committee for another public hearing.
Dont ban the booze, its useless unless there are cops to actually enforce it and from what I see the few cops in lighthouse on weekends have their hands full without even getting out of the car.
The best thing for the weekend crowds would be cops on bikes or foot from noon until closing.