THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, November 4, 1994 TAG: 9411030193
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 47 lines
If it ever was a secret - And why should it have been? - that Virginia Beach is set on maintaining law and order at the Oceanfront, it's a secret no longer. Some ABC officials, some City Council members and some city staff members met last March to discuss ways to prevent recurring problems on the resort strip with bars and young people, particularly in the area of 21st Street and Atlantic known as ``The Block.''
One recurring problem on The Block (as elsewhere) is non-compliance with ABC requirements, such as meeting the ratio of food to alcohol sales and keeping alcohol from minors. One way to address non-compliance is to shout from the rooftops that a crackdown's coming, in hopes bars will get the message and tighten up on their own. Another way, when a custom of lesser penalties might mute the message, is to impose stiffer penalties for non-compliance, starting with somebody somewhere and continuing on.
Not coincidentally, another problem recurring on The Block is congregations of teenagers too young to legally go in the bars but plenty old to buy pizza at some bars' sidewalk windows. They can complicate detecting underage drinkers, but they help bars meet their ratio of food to alcohol sales. The Block's bar owners can and do try to keep the congregating down. But keeping people from blocking the sidewalk is a police job.
Meeting ABC requirements is the bar owners' job. Especially in an area frequented by underage crowds and prominent on police reports, they shouldn't expect to get any slack. They especially shouldn't expect slack from an ABC board whose chairwoman owes her job to a governor elected to be tough on crime and, as a former member of the Resort Area Advisory Commission, knows the problems firsthand.
The rules haven't changed. And changing them is up to lawyers in the legislature, not lawyers in court. But their enforcement has changed, and for the better in a section of the city that has a concentration of bars, young people and trouble. It's a historic combination and, if you look at other similar areas in the Beach and neighboring cities, an increasingly dangerous one. It's in the bar owners' interest, as well as their patrons' and the city's, to keep that concentration down, and law enforcement up. by CNB