Police report quieter year at area bars, restaurants

Posted 12/6/16

Figures compiled by the Powell Police Department and presented to the Powell City Council last month show there were 334 calls for service at the city’s 20 establishments from November 2015 to November 2016 — a roughly 45 percent drop from the …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

E-mail
Password
Log in

Police report quieter year at area bars, restaurants

Posted

Liquor licenses all renewed

Powell’s bars and restaurants kept things pretty orderly in serving alcohol over the past year.

Figures compiled by the Powell Police Department and presented to the Powell City Council last month show there were 334 calls for service at the city’s 20 establishments from November 2015 to November 2016 — a roughly 45 percent drop from the 600 calls made the previous year.

“It would appear that the bar owners and staff are managing activity within the establishments well,” said Powell Police Chief Roy Eckerdt.

At their Nov. 21 meeting, city council members unanimously voted to renew the licenses of Powell’s liquor establishments for another year.

“Every year I sit in the back of the room, and you guys thumb through the packet that we put together and no matter how dismayed I might be at that moment, someone says, ‘You guys did a really good job.’ And I step back and go, ‘Did you look at the same report I did?’” Eckerdt told the council.

“This year I can honestly say that our establishments did a really good job,” Eckerdt continued. “So I’ll say it for you this time — that they did very good.”

Police recorded only four negative contacts with those license holders between November 2015 and the middle of last month. Three were the result of employees selling alcohol to minors who were working for police as part of alcohol compliance checks; the other bad mark came when an employee failed to report a disturbance at a bar.

It was a notable improvement from the eight negative contacts police had recorded the year before.

Meanwhile, the bars and restaurants received 20 positive write-ups from police between Novembers 2015 and 2016; that was down from 64 the year before.

“I did notice the negatives were down quite a bit overall,” said Councilman John Wetzel. “The positives were down a little bit, but if you don’t have negatives, that’s a pretty good equal out.”

Further, a drop in “positives” isn’t always a bad thing. For example, a business will receive a positive mark if their employee is the one who proactively reports something like a fight, a drunken patron or a minor trying to buy beer.

Just days before the council meeting, police conducted a round of compliance checks and employees at four establishments failed the test — selling alcohol to the minors that police covertly had sent in.

Eckerdt explained that four times a year, officers recruit someone under the age of 21, usually around 19 years old, and send them into Powell’s bars and restaurants to try buying alcohol.

“They’re instructed that they’re not allowed to lie or attempt to deceive, and if they’re asked for their ID, they provide their actual ID,” he explained. “If someone asks them if they’re 21, they can’t say yes if they’re not — they have to be truthful.”

If an employee does serve the youth, they’re cited for furnishing alcohol to a minor and the business receives a negative mark that’s considered during the annual renewal process.

With four failures, Powell’s establishments got as many negative write-ups on Nov. 18 as the entire preceding year.

“That’s something we’ll pay attention to,” Eckerdt told the council. “But overall, if you look at the packet, our incident numbers were very low for the year. So our license holders did a good job.”

Comments