I was in The Loop Saturday afternoon and evening with a small group. We had a couple of drinks at the Pin-Up Bowl and at Eclipse before moving onto the Horseshoe House (small plug: Yum!) for dinner. While we were sitting outside the Horseshoe House, we noticed two policemen on the opposite side of Delmar moving a group of teenagers along, mostly African-American, toward the east away from The Loop. Minutes later, we heard no gunshots, but saw droves of teenagers heading our way. Some of them seemed scared and/or shaken up, and some told us about the fights. Almost instantly, I saw more police cars tear down Delmar Boulevard than I've ever seen, well, except for the chase scene in The Blues Brothers.
After dinner, I went to a friend's house nearby on Washington Boulevard and waited for things to die down a bit. I then walked to my car, which was parked behind the Pageant, and by then police blocked off the intersection and began directing traffic and fellow pedestrians.
I point all of this out because I never felt unsafe. If anything, I was encouraged by such a strong police response. I was under the impression this type of behavior died down late last summer, but I wouldn't have stayed away from The Loop anyway. Taking my family there, now that's a different story. I won't hesitate to take them to the area either, but I'll be mindful of the time at which I take them, where I park, where I go, etc. So I'm anxious to see the government/law enforcement response.
This morning, Mayor Slay posted to Facebook about his frustration with the incident, as well as a meeting that took place with Alderwoman Krewson, area business leaders, and University City officials. They discussed ways to more effectively deploy resources to the area; I think that's a great start. I am not a fan of video cameras per se, but I think the surveillance vehicle that's now in the area is a good step as well.
However, I couldn't help but to be puzzled by the mayor's other suggestion: car-free weekends. To me this is an idea that makes a few people feel good, but it creates a whole host of additional problems and risks draining the area of its vitality. Pardon me if I don't see the logic in eliminating cars on weekends when the perpetrators of this incident were mostly pedestrians, at least as far as we know.
I agree with others: Church's Chicken and Circle K are magnets for trouble-makers. These people congregate on the surface lots, and sure enough, this incident began at the Church's parking lot based on the accounts I've seen. Like DeBaliviere said, the businesses themselves aren't responsible, but if you had developments of a better and higher use at the northwest and southeast corners of Delmar and Skinker boulevards, you'd have nowhere for these miscreants to congregate.
Dealing with the systemic causes, as ttricamo said, is quite a bit more difficult, and our local history suggests it's something we don't really like to think about much. And, quite honestly, for those of us that are genuinely concerned about that, I don't know where we being as a community.
The car-free idea, however, seems preposterous. I'd be willing to see it happen on a limited basis as a trial. But I think a comprehensive traffic management plan should first be in place and the proposed Loop Trolley should be fully operational before this type of thing happens on a regular basis. Closing the streets to vehicular traffic creates an inconvenience for many people, eliminates a lot of on-street parking (including dozens of handicapped spaces), pushes traffic and parked cars onto adjacent side streets that cannot handle the additional load, and does absolutely NOTHING to address what happened Saturday night.
Hopefully this idea never moves beyond the concept stage unless local leaders have sound planning in place. But I think they'd better worry about doing something with the actual criminals first.
