It is our issue

Last thursday a post went up over at the WoMag blog following the License Commission meeting that seemed too bizarre to be true. Following the latest shooting in the area of Alta Cafe, on Main St which admittedly is one of the biggest train wrecks of a business the city has going, the Worcester License Commission has some new rules in play for the club. Namely two paid police details the days they are open and the club is not allowed to open until those details arrive and is not to open if they are not able to secure detail officers. Money quote provided by chair of the Worcester License Commission, Kevin O’Sullivan

“If you can’t get an officer, I’m sorry. That’s not our issue,”

Actually, Kevin, it is our issue. Taking the current size of the M.G.L. into account it’s inconceivable that we don’t already have the laws in place that would shutter the Alta as a public nuisance. The club owner is being asked to hire details for problems that occur mainly outside his doors. That means the city is asking Alta owner Ben Mercedes to pay privately for police to patrol public ways. I was always under the impression WPD salaries covered this sort of thing. And it’s still not clear what if anything this move is expected to change. Since any reasonable person would realize the problem is not with the club, but the douche-bags who go there and hang around outside after the club is closed. If Alta closes, the douche-bags simply go somewhere else. One has to wonder if the average idiot who thinks Benefit St is a swell place to stand for hours at 2AM even realizes the city is having relatively public conversations about their presence; probably not. So if you have a hundred people blocking a public way, loitering and generally being a nuisance, why are the police not making arrests, nightly? The WoMag piece on the issue has the Alta owner admitting that parking for the club blocks the adjacent side street, so why is there not a fleet of tow trucks waiting to haul every car as soon as the engine is killed? Is there even a no-parking sign at the location?

Why are we allowing career politicians to pretend publicly that we don’t already have the tools for this particular job in the form of the M.G.L. and local ordinance or that we haven’t figured out all these problems in the past, simply to close a business they don’t like? That’s lazy and a classic example of just how unfriendly to business the city of Worcester can be when the people involved are simply unwilling to do the jobs we pay them to do.