City, bar owners plan summit

Traditionally, the relationship between bar and restaurant owners and cops has been adversarial, according to Sgt. E.T. Nelson of the Minneapolis Police Department’s (downtown) First Precinct. "Bars have been reluctant to call the police for anything, because they considered it a mark against their establishment."

But a six-year old group, Warehouse Business District Security Group, that includes police, city regulatory services representatives and bar and restaurant owners, has turned out to be a "wonderful organization," he said. "It helps us keep tabs on things; it’s a community effort to keep tabs on the area."

Next week, on June 6, the city’s Regulatory Services office, the 2nd Precinct police officers and City Council Member Diane Hofstede are holding the first meeting of a new bar/restaurant owners’ group called LINC (which roughly stands for Liquor In the City). Based on the warehouse model, the idea is to get people acquainted and talking to each other.

"This came up in working with one of the bar owners," Hofstede said. "They initiated the idea of being more collaborative. They’ve been having difficulty with things like patrons’ over-consumption and underage drinking. We’re looking at every single avenue to have bar owners do a good job."

She said many people are concerned about overconsumption. "We want to discourage things like '21 drinks when you are 21’ practice. If you have to navigate and are on the street, you are impaired. You are also at risk to someone who could take advantage of you.

Nelson said the warehouse group discusses best business practices, things such as a dress code, over-consumption and carding. "For the dress code, you have to look at the people coming in and keep the crap outside the bar. Do you want hoodlums? You look for people with their pants hanging off their hind end, wearing gang colors." He said that overconsumption in the night clubs --the warehouse district includes clubs such as Karma, Aqua, Spin, Drink, Bootleggers and Rosens--is difficult to monitor. "Especially in a large club, you’ll get a person in a dark corner served by a waitress. You never see them until they walk across the room, maybe to go to the rest room. It’s a lot different when the bar is the type of place where people have to come up to it to order drinks and the bartender can see them."

He said the police typically don’t hold bars accountable if a patron has a fake i.d. "If somebody comes in with a good fake, the people at the door aren’t necessarily experts. We tell them to look for other i.d., ask questions, like what is their address, when is their birthday."