What's at stake?
The City of Fresno quickly introduced a handful of safety measures for the Tower District neighborhood in the hours following a nightclub shooting last weekend. City leaders held a community meeting on Wednesday to receive feedback on the new policies from local residents.
The meeting, which took three hours and saw impromptu policy changes, has some residents feeling that a consensus may be hard to reach on how to best address nightlife safety going forward.
Fresno’s Tower District residents brought the heat to city leaders in a packed Tower Theatre Wednesday evening, raising questions about the city’s policing strategies as more police presence hasn’t stymied a string of violence on the Olive Avenue corridor.
In the hours following a nightclub shooting last weekend outside a Tower District nightclub, Fresno leaders rushed to implement a series of safety measures to address what they say are much needed improvements to the city’s premier nightlife neighborhood.
“Our goal is to have zero tolerance for violence in the Tower,” said Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer at the tense and contentious community meeting. “That’s my promise. That’s our promise.”
Flanked by city councilmembers, law enforcement officials and the city manager, Dyer hosted a crowd of more than 500 neighborhood residents on Wednesday in a rare town hall to provide clarity on what changes are coming to the neighborhood, and to get feedback from the community in real time.
As the mayor announced that the city would be adding even more police officers on weekend nights, he was swiftly met with a resounding crowd of boos. The other changes include:
- Contract police officers in front of MIA Nightclub, Vibez Lounge, and Bobby Salazar’s
- Moving street vendors to a vacant lot on the southwest corner of Van Ness and Olive
- Adding four mobile trailers with security cameras and lights, operational only on weekend nights
- “Doubling the wattage” of streetlights along Olive Avenue
- Cracking down on nightclubs whose patios are open past 10:00 p.m.
- Enforcing a curfew for minors after 10:00 p.m.
- Limiting street parking on Olive after 10:00 p.m.
- Adding more street sweeping and power washing of sidewalks after 2:00 a.m.
But how the city follows through on some these goals was the subject of, at times, intense discourse in the three-hour community meeting that ultimately exposed deeply held frustrations and mistrust with the city’s police force, the role nightclubs and bars play in escalating violence in the Tower District, and City Hall’s ability to ensure the Tower District continues to be a much sought after party destination throughout the Central Valley.
Brandon Freeman, a local musician, said that he hopes the city’s new practices, while well-intentioned, do not overcorrect by creating an atmosphere where people skip out on visiting the Tower District entirely.
“We are at risk of losing our cultural identity here if these plans aren’t implemented correctly,” Freeman said.
“Policing is not the answer,” stressed Alicia Rodriguez, an artist with Labyrinth Art Collective and a long-time Tower advocate.
Others, like Kristina Holmes-McIntyre, pointed out that she often sees police officers staying in their cars instead of walking around and de-escalating fights, a theme echoed throughout the evening.
The City’s spending on Tower District policing remains exponentially higher than it spends patrolling other neighborhoods.
Critics in recent months have argued that the Tower District is not reaping any tangible rewards for the increased spending. Last weekend’s shooting outside of the MIA Nightclub, which saw two people injured and the arrest of a 16-year-old, was the fourth shooting in the Tower District to happen this year.
Joe Alvarez, deputy chief for the Fresno Police Department, acknowledged criticisms of law enforcement and asked residents to “let us earn the right to be heard and to work harder.”
He said officers assigned to patrol the Tower District would be given refreshers on best practices going forward with the city’s new proposed policies.
“I’m not here to defend. What I am here to say is, I’m willing to listen,” Alvarez said. While committing to do better, he also invited residents to collaborate and help law enforcement.
Other changes to the Tower District, like making streetlights brighter and additional street-sweeping services, drew near-universal praise from the lively crowd, who signaled their preferences with cheers, boos, and hisses. But most changes saw at least some pushback from residents.
One commenter reminded the public officials on stage of the difficulty in increasing a “surveillance and police state” in a neighborhood proudly claimed by those rejected by much of society – the “hippies, punks, and queers,” he said.
Several residents spoke out against the new mobile light stations, which will feature mounted security cameras, asking if the city will work with Flock or other entities who could share the surveillance information.
One bouncer at a nearby nightclub on Olive suggested the city could work more on training security guards to be more effective and focus on de-escalation, an idea Alvarez was amenable to.
Other residents pointed to other larger problems that they saw contributing to issues in the Tower – from the neighborhood’s vacant and blighted building problem to a perceived lack of investment in disadvantaged youth.
“We need to address these blighted buildings and use them for community resources,” emphasized Diana Oliva, founder and CEO of Casita Feliz.
And some matters, like when exactly the city would be enforcing its newly established parking bans on Olive Avenue, were changed by Dyer on-the-fly after receiving community feedback. After receiving complaints on Wednesday of the proposed 6 p.m. start time, Dyer told business owners that the city won’t enforce the newly-painted-white curbs, which are now loading only zones, until after 10:00 p.m. instead.
With last weekend’s shooting outside the MIA Nightclub, and the alleged 16-year-old shooter in custody, the city also expressed an interest in being more proactive with enforcing curfew on minors.
Alvarez said that PD would not engage with minors unless they had “reasonable doubt” to approach them. Critics jeered at the response, with some shouting that they felt the proposal too similarly mirrored “stop and frisk,” a controversial, but legal law enforcement tool.
Many residents and business owners wanted to know how the city was planning on holding some of the nightclubs accountable. Much of the criticism was specifically directed at the MIA Nightclub.
Lewis Everk, the owner of MIA Nightclub, came with dozens of people, some of whom he identified as club employees, to Wednesday’s meeting. Defending his establishment from what he said was a clearly hostile crowd and an unfair portrait of his nightclub from social media videos and city leaders, Everk said he has brought concerns with public safety to local law enforcement and government officials before, but that his calls have ultimately gone unanswered.
He added that the state’s Alcoholic Beverage Control department, who regulates liquor licenses, had visited MIA in the past few weeks.
“You can’t blame a business for what geographically happens around it,” Everk said.
Many of the changes the city is introducing in the wake of the shooting outside of MIA will be implemented by Thursday night. The changes face a uniquely difficult stress test soon, as the Halloween weekend, according to Alvarez, is among the busiest times in the Tower District.
One change, a proposal to force all sidewalk vendors to sell on an empty lot on the southwest corner of Van Ness and Olive Avenues, still needs to be approved by the Fresno City Council before it can be implemented.
The Fresno City Council will discuss and vote on the proposal at a special meeting at 2 p.m. on Thursday.
Dyer and city leaders committed to a follow up community meeting to hear how residents are coping with these new changes, though no date was shared on when that would happen.
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