‘Vibrant nightlife’ — or vandalism and violence?

Some business owners say the downtown bar crowd is out of control: ‘It’s just kind of a zoo down here’

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Early last Thursday, local event promoter and hip-hop fanYgnacio “Notch” Bermudez, 35, was shot to death outside The Loft, alive music venue and bar at 414 E. Michigan Ave. The murder is thelatest — and most alarming — development in a series of incidents thathave frustrated and infuriated some local business owners.

Dorothy Surato, an employee at City Salon, whichneighbors The Loft, said obviously the recent murder isn’t commonplace,and that typically the young crowd drawn to The Loft’s rock and rapshows causes no major problems. “We get graffiti in our doorway, vomiton our doorstep, our doorway is always full of cigarette butts in themorning,” Surato said. “But I can’t run-down the landlord because analcohol establishment would be much more profitable where we arelocated.”

Mindy Biladeau, executive director at Downtown LansingInc., said that when a city has a vibrant downtown nightlife, withswarms of people heading to bars and restaurants, the city is “bound tohave a few unfortunate incidences when alcohol is involved.” She saidthese are common occurrences in other, comparably sized cities. 

“We’re an urban area in a big urban city and, in thegrand scheme of things and comparing it to other cities throughout thestate and the country, everyone has to deal with these things,”Biladeau said. “It happens everywhere. It’s not just downtown Lansing.It’s not like we or the police have noticed a spike in anythingunusual. There’s nothing like that going on.”

Some business operators aren’t as forgiving. 

Cher Kiesel, co-owner of Spotted Dog Café, 221 S.Washington Square, said she’s been downtown for 15 years and feelsthere is a definite increase in raucous, after-hours behavior. She hada window broken at her café on Oct. 28.

“There’s more fighting outside the bars,” Kiesel said. “Ithink it’s when people are ejected from the bars or they leave. They’reout in the street and they’re shouting and screaming obscenities andit’s just kind of a zoo down here. I am concerned about it.”

Kiesel said she doesn’t feel a rowdy bar scene is thedefinition of a “vibrant nightlife.” She said she hopes to get somelocal support.

“We would all like to see a little more of a responsefrom our business association (Downtown Lansing Inc.) and maybe thecity,” Kiesel said. “I feel like if there’s not enough money for policethen there needs to be some pressure put on these bars to policethemselves. It wouldn’t cost them that much to have a couple ofsecurity guards walk up and down the street between 9 p.m. and 2 a.m.on weekends, to keep people moving and away from other people’sbusinesses.”

On weekends, after midnight, Jessica Decker avoids walking down the brightly lit sidewalks of Washington Square at all costs. 

At those hours Decker’s preferred route to her downtownapartment is down a dark alley. She’s dodging the intoxicated clubberswho are entering and exiting area hot spots. 

“I walk back home through the dark alley because it’ssafer,” said Decker, 29, who has owned Decker’s Coffee Co. onWashington Square for four and a half years. Since then she claims tohave replaced five broken windows; she thinks it’s due to the amount ofdrunk, sometimes hostile, people leaving nearby dance clubs. 

“There are fights and vandalism,” Decker said.“Businesses patios get messed up from fights, windows get broken,there’s throw-up everywhere, there’s broken glass, people get drunk.There’s just not enough security out on the street.”

This is a much different atmosphere from the weekdaydaylight hours on Washington Square. In comparison to past years, thestretch is currently booming. 

“During the day it’s great — it’s quiet and it’s clean,”Decker said. “And business is great. We’ve steadily grown each yearwe’ve been here. But having to clean up puke at 7 in the morning is notfun. It’s just discouraging, it gets old. It’s like, ‘Really? This ishappening again? Every weekend?’”

Decker said she fully supports local bars; she was abartender herself for seven years. However, she said the nightclubsshould start paying for additional outdoor security on WashingtonSquare. 

“The police have been great. I don’t feel a lack ofpolice is the problem,” Decker said. “I think the problem is the barsare overserving — that’s the problem. People need to be cut off. One ofmy solutions is to ticket these bars for overserving.” 

Jerome Abood, owner of Wild Beaver Saloon, 205 S.Washington Square, said he is willing to work with the community to fixthis problem, which he said is sometimes out of his hands.

“I’m all for a concerted effort by everybody to come inand fix the problems occurring out in the street,” Abood said.“Unfortunately for us as a city, budget cuts made it impossible for usto have the quality police force we had down here. I don’t thinkthey’re doing a bad job now. I just think it was healthier when the 40or 50 officers they had to cut were more available in evenings. Thepresence alone makes a big difference.”

Abood said the notion of overserving for profit, or lackof care, is an “ignorant notion.” He said what people do before orafter entering a bar isn’t always under his control. 

“I think we have something going on in the street that’sfalling into a grey area,” Abood said. “That doesn’t mean one bar ownerisn’t holding their own. There’s only so many things a bar owner canpatrol.

“I have no interest in overserving. I make no money inoverserving somebody. I have no interest in somebody becoming violentor becoming sick. I like people to come in and have fun, get in a caband go home.”

As for the broken windows, fighting and otherdisturbances, Lt. Noel Garcia of the Lansing Police Department saidofficers attend frequent meetings with Lansing Downtown Inc. and areabar owners in an effort to prevent such occurrences. 

“We’ve had some reports of fights: I can’t give you aspecific number — we’d have to do a data analysis on that,” Garciasaid. “But we have had fights reported down in the downtown area.That’s all part of what could be a result of excessive drinking andthat’s why we have those quarterly meetings with the bar owners.”

Garcia said the LPD does patrol downtown accordingly;however, he said, club owners should also be taking responsibility fortheir patrons.

“It can’t be something that the police department hassole responsibility for,” Garcia said. “We work with them on that. Wetalk with them about that at these meetings that we have with themregularly. It’s nothing that they should be surprised about. If they’rehaving a large event, for example, we ask them questions about whatkind of security they’re having for that. 

“They can’t expect the Lansing Police Department to betheir security for these types of special events, and we’ve never giventhem the impression that we will be,” he added.

Even with the scuffles and vandalism, Abood said the growing nightlife prevails over what used to be a ghost town. 

“Remember, it wasn’t that long ago when nobody would comedown Michigan Avenue,” Abood said. “You got the city pulling in allthese forces, which include the baseball stadium, the state police andall these projects. You got to have a mix to make a city work. You haveto have housing, nightlife, food, entertainment options, as well as aplace to work and shop — a lifestyle. When you look at that, I thinkLansing has come a long way.”

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