County in Adirondacks takes step to close bars earlier

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

The Associated Press  

ELIZABETHTOWN — A county in the Adirondacks has taken the first step toward requiring bars to stop serving alcohol at 3 a.m. instead of 4 a.m.

Local media outlets report that the Public Safety Committee of the Essex County Board of Supervisors on Monday approved a measure calling for the earlier closing time. A final vote on the proposal is expected at a board meeting May 6.

If approved, the State Liquor Authority would make the final decision after a public hearing.

The 3 a.m. proposal is a compromise from an earlier recommendation seeking a 2 a.m. closing time, a move opposed by some tavern owners in the village of Lake Placid.

Supporters of the earlier closing time say the move would reduce alcohol-based problems and their related costs. 

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If you don't know why that would be significant in Saratoga Springs, read here.

Essex County is north of Washington and Warren counties. According to my count last April, about two thirds of counties in the state have restricted their last call hours to earlier than the latest the State Liquor Authority allows bars to stay open — 4 a.m. 

The Saratoga County Board of Supervisors shot down a vote similar to the one Essex County took in July before it even made it to a vote of the full board. 

Also, I spoke to Public Safety Commissioner Christian Mathiesen the other day about salaries and overtime for a story over the weekend on City Salaries (which now has a list of the salaries for all city employees who make more than $10,000), and we talked a little about downtown problems. 

 It didn't really fit in the story at the time, but he said according to Public Safety numbers, $135,000 in salary and overtime is "directly attributable to additional patrols needed" for the Caroline Street bar district. 

He added that many of the department's injuries  are caused on Caroline Street late at night "when people become emboldened and offer resistance to police."  (They have at least two officers out right now for it)

Public Safety Commissioner Christian Mathiesen doesn't like this blog

In particular, he didn't like this post from last month and he told the City Council (and anyone else watching last night's meeting) during their meeting that he was "surprised and disappointed" by it.

The post was about Mathiesen's campaign against the late-night chaos of Caroline Street, which he argues can be mitigated by rolling back last call to 3 a.m. from 4 a.m.

It was a failed effort and I said so. I don't think that's up for dispute. It barely made it out of the City Council and It didn't make it out of the committee at the county level (where any change to last call would ultimately have to be decided).

As I pointed out in the blog post, I thought Mathiesen's campaign to change last call was over until the March 19 City Council meeting when he brought it up again under an agenda item labeled: "Lawlessness after 4 a.m." 

He called me last week upset about the post. He accused me of being in the pockets of Caroline Street businesses ("I know The Saratogian gets a lot of advertising from Caroline Street") and of constantly criticizing his efforts.

First off, he is just plain wrong about that. I haven't received any direction from the publisher or advertising department. 

He also asked (not rhetorically, he waited for an answer) if I actually believed his efforts were hurting tourism in the city.

I responded that those weren't my words, that criticism came from the top three leaders of the city's tourism industry. My opinion doesn't matter.

Last night I made it to the big leagues. In an agenda item, "Late night arrests," seemingly solely dedicated to refuting my blog post, he let his criticism be known publicly. Pointing to my post (and me by name, though I had already left and was watching the webcast while filing my articles from the office) he said it was "sarcastic" and undermining his efforts.

I didn't find the post (which by now you should realize I've been linking to as frequently as possible) sarcastic and I'm certainly not ignoring his arguments. 

As I pointed out last week, my post summarized all of his efforts and quoted him extensively throughout. I'm just writing down what he's done and said.

Though I thought last call had already come and gone on the discussion over bar closing times, the issue came up again at City Council Tuesday night.

Public Safety Commissioner Christian Mathiesen, who last year championed a failed effort to make last call earlier, voiced a renewed appeal to address late night drunken crime at the City Council meeting Tuesday night under an agenda item titled: "Lawlessness after 2 AM."

"It is so important to acknowledge that we do have a problem," he said.

During his campaign for Public Safety Commissioner, Mathiesen referred to that problem as a "toxic atmosphere" on Caroline Street late at night.

The issue was long-debated at the City Council meeting and had a few public meetings and workshops. The State Liquor Authority said any change that happened with last call must be made at the county level.  That prompted the City Council to send the issue to the Board of Supervisors.

That didn't go so well for Mathiesen — the proposal never made it out of committee.

Still, that didn't stop his effort, or at least didn't stop him appealing to the state to continue the effort to change last call. Things had been quiet for a while, though, until Tuesday that is.

Mathiesen outlined the fight that sent two police to the hospital Friday night at just before 3 a.m. (and severely damaged the suspect's face) and, of course, the break-in at City Hall at 4:40 a.m. Saturday morning.

"People are still being over-served. Ultimately I think we really need to look at these hours," he said Tuesday. "The people who continue to deny this (problem) I do not understand."

Many of those people are bar owners, bar staff and those in the tourism industry. In fact, three heads of tourism told Mathiesen last year that he was damaging the city's reputation with his rhetoric.

Mathiesen, of course, responded to them in April saying “I think the city being dangerous late at night is counterproductive. I don’t think talking about it is. It is dangerous downtown late at night.”

He also said it is costing the city money in overtime for police and, citing Friday night's incident that sent two police officers to the hospital.

*Update* I've changed this part of the post to clarify what Mathiesen meant after he called me to clarify his point.*

Mathiesen said Tuesday that he would like a state-wide solution to last call.

"It would be better for everyone if we change last call to 2 or 3 a.m.," Mathiesen told me Wednesday, clarifying his position. "I think that would be a better solution."

Of course, given the fact that two City Council members supported the change, one recused because he is part-owner in a bar, another voted against it and one said "I’m completely disinterested in this issue... All I wanted to do was kick it to the county," I'm not sure he had the votes to change it even at the City Council level.

Finance Commissioner Michele Madigan was the sole City Council member in the room when a county committee put the kibosh on changing last call.

State Liquor Authority representatives issued a ruling that any request for a change would have to be county-wide and come from the Board of Supervisors. Last week, though, a committee at the county voted not to make that request.

Madigan said the fact that the vote happened surprised her, but the vote itself did not.

Madigan said at the City Council table the night they forwarded it to the county that "I have no problem letting the county decide this."

After the vote, she told me: "I’m completely disinterested in this issue, and the county needs to solve it or this issue is going to keep coming up year after year after year."

At this point though, standing on the other side of the county vote, Madigan said: "As far as I'm concerned the county has spoken.""

She said she doesn't know if Mathiesen will come to the City Council before he makes his way to a conversation with State Liquor Authority representatives, which he said is his next step, but as far as she's concerned "It's done."

I wish I could say I wouldn't have to write about last call again, but it seems clear I'm going to have to for the rest of the year as the issue moves through the Board of Supervisors and then to the State Liquor Authority.

Interesting vote Tuesday night. Read the story (and watch a video of two opposing viewpoints) here.

One particularly interesting aspect was Michele Madigan's political move in essentially not taking a stance. "I'm in favor of moving this to the county to decide," she said.

In fact, she cited my article... well, the first sentence of my article which reads as follows:
"The City Council is slated to vote Tuesday night on changing last call at local bars to 3 a.m," which she denounced as wrong.

"We're not voting on changing last call here," she said. "That's not what we're doing here."

She clearly didn't read sentence # 2 which stated, and I quote:

"After the City Council vote, the measure would need to go to the Saratoga County Board of Supervisors for approval. If approved there, it would still need to go to the New York State Liquor Authority Board for approval."

She said she did not want to tell the county to make the change county wide, but (maybe didn't read) the resolution she voted to endorse said:

"WHEREAS, this City Council recognizes that its partner, the County of Saratoga Board of Supervisors, has the sole authority to enact a measure to constrain the adverse effects on the public and City employees tasked with protecting the public associated with the on-premises sale of alcoholic beverages, that measure being the county-wide change in the time of last call from 4 a.m. to 3 a.m."

Below is the full resolution, if anyone out there is interested in reading it. While Madigan did not want to take a stand on last call issues, she did, since she voted to approve the below resolution:

WHEREAS, the Saratoga Springs City Council has great appreciation for the historic
and contemporary resort nature of Saratoga Springs as a destination for rest, relaxation,
nightlife, and entertainment, and

WHEREAS, this City Council has a responsibility to protect the public health, safety and
welfare from adverse effects associated with the on-premises sale of alcoholic
beverages at establishments licensed to sell such beverages within the City of Saratoga
Springs, and

WHEREAS, this City Council has taken numerous measures to constrain the adverse
effects on the public and City employees tasked with protecting the public associated
with the on-premises sale of alcoholic beverages at establishments licensed to sell such
beverages within the City of Saratoga Springs, and

WHEREAS, this City Council will continue to work with local proprietors to constrain the
adverse effects on the public and City employees tasked with protecting the public
associated with the on-premises sale of alcoholic beverages at establishments licensed
to sell such beverages within the City of Saratoga Springs, and;

WHEREAS, this City Council recognizes that its partner, the County of Saratoga
Springs Board of Supervisors, has the sole authority to exercise one measure to
constrain the adverse effects on the public and City employees tasked with protecting
the public associated with the on-premises sale of alcoholic beverages, that measure
being the county-wide change in the time of last call from 4:00 AM to 3:00 AM;

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Saratoga Springs City Council asks
Saratoga County Board of Supervisors to support a law that will change the permitted
hours of on-premises sales of alcoholic beverages at retail in the City of Saratoga
Springs, prohibiting such sales on Sundays from 3:00 A.M. to 12:00 noon, and on any
other day from 3:00 A.M. to 8:00 A.M.

ADOPTED:
AYES: 3 (I filled this in)

Update:
Madigan called me this evening to explain her stance on last call in the county and the vote she cast Tuesday night.

"I just want to see this issue solved once and for all," she said, adding she did not think it was "politics as usual" as my tag indicates.

"I’m completely disinterested in this issue, and the county needs to solve it or this issue is going to keep coming up year after year after year," she said.

"All I wanted to do was kick it to the county," she said. "If the county board of Supervisors wants to change last call, fine."

Madigan, though, said she thinks the issue was being rushed.

"I think the bar owners are working with the city hand-in-hand," she said. "I personally feel the city needs to give bar owners more time to see if their efforts pay off."

"This is a divisive issue. Somebody needs to look at it once and for all."

She said she was divided on the issue, but she was in favor of the county deciding. "Last night was a tough vote for me," she said.

Over the weekend, I wrote a story about how bar owners are trying to address some of the issues raised by Public Safety Commissioner Christian Mathiesen regarding late night on Caroline Street.

In the course of talking to Mathiesen about some of the ways the bar owners and he have been dealing with last call issues, he brought up an interesting proposal which I had never heard before, though he said it was something he has discussed previously.

He has been looking at some way to have bars and clubs which are open past a certain time pay a fee for the cost to the city of policing the area. Mathiesen said he brought it up to bar and club owners in January.

"We need to look at ways of cutting those costs," he said, citing police overtime expenses and the number of police it takes to handle large crowds late at night.

*The next paragraph is the short update. I neglected to include this to begin with, but it was part of Mathiesen's argument. It seemed to speak to a couple of the comments that came in overnight and this morning. I meant to include it the first time but it slipped my mind. My apologies (And by the way, I don't particularly mind people leaving the same comment five times, but it doesn't mean it will get posted any sooner, I need to review them first and for good reason).

Mathiesen pointed out that special events — such as the Saratoga Race Track, 5k races and other things that require special police details — already have to pay extra fees for emergency services. Last year, for instance, according to Saratoga Assistant Fire Chief Peter Shaw, the around 38 percent of the Fire Department's overtime costs were reimbursed by special contracts. I don't have the figures at this point for how much police overtime was taken care of through reimbursements.

Bar and club owners have said that rolling last call back an hour — which is supposed to be voted on at tomorrow's City Council meeting (though it will then need to go to the county and then the state) — would hurt their bottom dollar significantly.

"If they are making that much money then they can certainly pay the cost for having police downtown," he said. In the past he said it amounted to welfare for the businesses because it costs the city more money for police than they bring in through sales tax.

At least two bar owners, though, have not heard of that plan — at least not substantially.

"It was a brief, couple minute discussion," said Tom Clancy, owner of (surprise, surprise) Clancy's Tavern on Caroline Street. But he said it was dropped after no one could come up with a way to ensure that it went specifically to late-night policing and overtime, not just to the general fund.

John Baker, owner of Gaffney's, remembers things a little differently. As he recalls, the discussion (which he too said was brief and ended with the general fund question) was about having a fee tacked on to cabaret licenses, which are necessary for any business wanting live music, and it was modest (he said $250).

Baker, though, said he wants numbers on how much police overtime is spent late at night and how it correlates to the time of last call.

"As a business person, I'll pay my fair share, but I don't want to be penalized for being legally open," he said.

Here's a Sound Off the paper received some time in the last couple days that did not make the cut because this "fella" went over the allotted time (30 seconds).

Still, I thought it should be aired, particularly after three heads of Saratoga Springs business and tourism spoke out against the message that Public Safety Commissioner Christian Mathiesen has been espousing.

"I was out in Chicago on business the other day and I was having lunch with a client. They live in Chicago and normally they come to the track in August with their family and this fella said 'You know I've heard of all of the violence in the streets and all of the movement down there to try to clean up the streets and how horrible it is.'

So they are not going to take their vacation this year and come to Saratoga. Keep it up Chris Mathiesen, I think you're doing a great job. Unfortunately it's what you want and not necessarily what's best for this area. Stick to what you do best, which is dentistry, because you are really giving this town a bad name."

In this case, though, since Mathiesen, the city's public safety commissioner, was singled out, I wanted to give him the opportunity to respond to the Sound Off.

I sent him the message so he could respond to it verbatim. Here is what the Commissioner had to say:

"To the person who wrote this Sound Off, it is hard to understand why anyone who has been coming to Saratoga Springs would not now come because we are trying to clean up 'all the violence in the streets'. Such a person would know that we have been referring to late night activities in the nightclub district. One would think that such a person would not return to Saratoga Springs if we were NOT addressing these problems.

It is hard to understand how eliminating this blemish on our reputation as a safe, fun place for tourists, conventioneers and Skidmore students is 'not necessarily what's best for this area'.

And yes, I do provide excellent dental services for my patients. Thanks for the compliment.

I am also doing a really good job as I serve on our City Council as well as in my oversight of the Public Safety Department. It is the late night problems in our nightclub district that are 'really giving this town a bad name.'

Please feel free to have the Chicago businessman call me. (518 587 3550 X 2627)

Chris Mathiesen"

Anyone else have a comment on this issue? Leave them below.

And remember (particularly when leaving comments), stay classy Saratoga.