The problems with violence on Beale Street are finally getting some exposure in the media, with two violent attacks receiving coverage this week.
John Elkington, head of the organization that manages the street, proposes closing all the bars on Beale at 3 AM rather than the current 5 AM closing time. I don’t think this will solve the problem at all. What it will do is penalize the owners of the businesses, as well as the service industry workers in the area who get off at 1-2 AM and want and deserve a place to blow off steam for a few hours afterward.
Currently the police roll through the street at about 2 AM and sweep it clean, forcing those hanging out on the street to either go into the bars or go home. After that there is no loitering allowed. Most weekends by 2 AM there is a thuggish, scary-looking crowd on Beale. They don’t spend money, they just hang out – so almost all of them choose to leave rather than go into bars when the cops roll through.
Here’s my proposed solution – keep the bars open until 5 AM so that those who want to come to Beale late at night and party and spend money still have the opportunity to do so. But, for a period of one year, prohibit loitering on Beale after 9 PM Friday and Saturday nights. Sweep the streets at 9 rather than at 2. After that, instead of having security checkpoints at all entrances to the street, have them patrol the street and ask loiterers to go inside a business, because the street is closed. Responsibility to check IDs would fall back to the bars themselves. Having security on the street asking people not to loiter would not only drive criminals off Beale, but it would eliminate panhandling there as well during those hours.
In order to avoid hurting Handy Park – where there are a lot of vendors and outdoor entertainers in the summer – they could block it off with portable fencing and create a gate to check IDs. This has been done before – KIX 106 does it for their Country on Beale concerts on Thursdays, for example.
After a year, the thugs likely will have found a new place to congregate, and Beale could be quietly reopened… no announcement to the media or anything, just revert back to the way it was before, with ID checkpoints at 9 and a police sweep at 2. Let word of mouth, and the fact that tourists never knew it was closed, gradually return outdoor business back to Beale Street.
Just an idea… and yeah I know it’s a pretty drastic one. But I think closing the street at 9 would eliminate the thugs, whereas closing the bars at 3 wouldn’t do a thing to get rid of them.