Sex, Drugs, Drinks, Homicides and Gambling Too

Sex, Drugs, Drinks, Homicides and Gambling Too

The Mayor said, "There’s a nightclub on every corner" in Atlanta. The License Commission "has to reflect the will of the people, which comes through the people they elect to the City Council," Reeves added. (Erin Smith, "Reeves wants to get this party started," Cambridge Chronicle, November 30, 2006)
What part of Atlanta did the Mayor visit? Did he have a drink in each club he saw? He runs City Council meetings as if he just came back from Atlanta.
More mysterious is his claim that the License Commission must reflect "the will of the people." Since when has any Cambridge city agency reflected the will of the people?
Before any city employee speaks or writes they must get approval from the city manager. The City Council has the power to request the Manager to do things. State law prohibits the council from ordering city agencies to act. The nine invertebrate councilors do not have enough spine to fire the manager and he knows it.
Why stop at more bars? Why not a couple of Ivy League brothels? Few Bay State politicians obey the laws or the voters. Why not open a few local casinos too? MIT and Harvard own a lot of private property, onto which the local police fear to enter. Why not make Cambridge like Las Vegas, a casino on every corner.
In Amsterdam there are marijuana clubs on every corner. Why not in Cambridge? Lots of homicides in New Orleans. Why not in Cambridge too? Lighten up License Commissioners.
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Roy Bercaw, Editor
ENOUGH ROOM
Cambridge MA USA

Reeves wants to get this party started
By Erin Smith
Cambridge Chronicle Staff
Thursday, November 30, 2006 - Updated: 08:08 AM EST

The city’s politicians are crying out for more hot spots in Cambridge where clubbers can shake their groove thing. "I just returned this week from Atlanta. There’s a nightclub on every corner," said Mayor Ken Reeves, who argued that adding more nightclubs in Cambridge would offer an after-hours entertainment incentive for biotech lab workers to live in the city.
The City Council recently made "more fun businesses," such as bars and dance clubs, a top priority on a list of goals for the city in the coming year. Reeves said there are few places to go dancing in Cambridge after ManRay nightclub in Central Square closed in 2005.
Reeves also argues that the License Commission should encourage bars and restaurants to stay open late at night for as long as they are making money. One councilor worried that an influx of nightclubs would also bring the end-of-the-night violence that breaks out outside Boston club scenes on Lansdowne Street or the Alley.
The popular Boston nightlife spots in Boston are "great places to go to. They’re not great places to live next to," said City Councilor Craig Kelley. City Councilor Brian Murphy, who first spearheaded the fun businesses movement, said Cambridge’s nightlife scene should be livelier, but club owners often can’t afford to buy building space in the city. "I think there’s little to no danger of Cambridge becoming Lansdowne Street. The real estate is too expensive," said Murphy at a recent City Council roundtable with License Commission officials about the city’s liquor license policies.
The License Commission is an autonomous committee, but that hasn’t stopped city councilors from trying to exert control over the agency. City councilors have been pressuring the License Commission to relax its rules and open the door to more alcohol-serving businesses to the city.
"While the License Commission has its own authority, it has to reflect the will of the people, which comes through the people they elect to the City Council," said Reeves.
In September, after prompting from the City Council, the License Commission made it easier for bar owners to sell their liquor license to bars and restaurants in other neighborhoods. The changes could alter the face of Cambridge neighborhoods and could mean more bars shifting from smaller commercial districts, such as Inman Square, to Harvard Square, where demand for liquor licenses is high. It could also mean more liquor-serving bars and restaurants overall in the city.
City Councilor Marjorie Decker is hoping the License Commission relaxes its liquor license policies even further. She pledged to form a task force with the city’s economic development officials to draft a new liquor license policy, while dismissing a fact sheet from the Cambridge Prevention Coalition. The fact sheet cites studies showing higher crime rates and complaints for noise, loitering and traffic, as well as binge drinking by college students in neighborhoods with more bars. "We can throw out all the facts of what one more Malaysian restaurant with a liquor license will do to a neighborhood. I’m not buying it," said Decker.
City Councilor Anthony Galluccio said that he would rather pressure restaurant owners with inactive liquor licenses to sell to other businesses than add more liquor licenses to the city’s stock. Said Galluccio, "I don’t know that I would add scores of nightclubs, but I am embarrassed when I go over to Sculler’s [a jazz club in Allston] to listen to music and I think, ’Why am I not in Cambridge?’"
- esmith@cnc.com
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