The Virginian-Pilot
                             THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Friday, April 28, 1995                 TAG: 9504270148
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON    PAGE: 06   EDITION: FINAL 
TYPE: Editorial 
                                             LENGTH: Short :   42 lines

BARS AT THE OCEANFRONT USEFUL PERMITS

The top five reasons Virginia Beach needed to require use permits to open bars in the resort area and the top violations police reported there in 1993:

(5) 342 arrests for driving under the influence

(4) 393 arrests for simple assault

(3) 570 arrests for disorderly conduct

(2) 733 arrests for drunkenness

(1) 1,510 liquor law violations

All those offenses can't be blamed on the concentration of bars at the Oceanfront. But until now a proprietor could turn a T-shirt shop into a tavern far more easily in the resort area than in any other part of town: He had only to get an ABC license from the state. The number of times that conversion has happened in the past few years is a sixth reason City Council approved use permits.

To broaden its tax base, the city needs to support businesses, and bars at the strip. Those businesses produce revenue for the city. But try as they might not to attract trouble - and Oceanfront owners are trying not to attract trouble - bars also draw crowds whose behavior costs the city in more police presence and fewer family tourists - the bread and butter of the Beach.

Capt. Ernest Buzzy of the Second Precinct shifted the police complement in the resort area to tourist-season mode earlier this month. That's sooner than usual, but none too soon to reassure visitors, businesspeople and residents alike: The city welcomes the well-behaved but is prepared to deal with the rest quickly. The scuttlebutt has been that young blacks are treated (a) less severely or (b) more severely than young whites. Some people are primed to believe (a), others to believe (b). Most people, in and out of uniform, see the need to obey the law and to enforce it based on conduct, not color. by CNB