Sunday, April 11, 1999
Beaten by a nightclub
BY PETER BRONSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
What a 100-proof shock. I never thought the day would come when people would say I know nothing about bars.
Imagine that. They're talking about the guy who majored in Elbow Bending in college. The student who took a bartending class just to learn exotic new ways to induce a headache. The slob who tried to get P.E. credits for weight-lifting — 12 ounces at a time.
And now they say I am ignorant about nightclubs.
And they are right.
Last week, I suggested that someone at City Hall must have been sampling the cooking sherry to grant a $159,000 low-interest loan to expand the Parktown Cafe on Linn Street — which had been cited in 101 police runs last year.
The city put our tax dollars to work to more than double the capacity of a nightclub that was already causing neighbors to complain about fights, disorderly conduct, bottle-throwing street brawls and excessive noise at 2 a.m., such as random gunshots.
On Monday, several callers wanted to know what I had been drinking that made me so stupid. What Cincinnati needs, they said, is more Parktowns, not fewer.
“The city has closed down all the smaller bars for the black community,” said Derik Longmyer. “All that's left is the Parktown and the Oasis in Bond Hill. The wild West stuff is caused because those bars are overcrowded ... When my wife and I wish to go out, we have only two bars that cater to the black community. So you have thousands of black youths waiting to get in to just a few bars, and only 500 to 600 slots where they can go.”
Herb Smith, who thinks I'm a right-wing lunatic but calls to straighten me out anyway, agreed. “There used to be a lot of small places in one's neighborhood to have a good time,” said the adjunct professor of sociology at University of Cincinnati. “Cincinnati used to be an entertainment town. Now most folks just stay home or go out of town ... There's simply nowhere to go.”
Even the police said I must have been DUI (driving while ignorant) when I ran down the Parktown.
“This is one location where management has chosen to work with the police,” said Capt. Vince Demasi, commander of the First District which covers the West End.
Other districts used to keep patrol cars in reserve just to handle problems at the Parktown, he said. “What we saw at the Parktown was not necessarily patrons, just people who wanted to be seen in and around that area because it was fashionable.”
Skeptical neighbors say the new security has not been tested by a warm night. But since off-duty cops were hired for security last fall, there has been no trouble, Capt. Demasi said. “To this point — knock on wood — we seem to have resolved a very major problem.”
Some callers said I must be a racist, because I did not criticize the mostly white crowds in the Main Street drinking district.
Maybe so. Maybe I can't see how things look from the black perspective. Maybe the nightlife scene has changed a lot since I was a bar-hopping pub crawler.
It never occurred to me to go to a bar without going inside. I would never occur to me to describe a place with metal detectors, where bouncers pat you down for firearms, as “an upscale atmosphere,” the way the city's loan report described the Parktown.
Things are different, I guess.
But one thing never changes. Wherever a keg is tapped or a cork is pulled or a bottle is tipped, some poor fool has tee many martoonis and turns into a slobbering, rubber-legged, large-mouthed public nuisance.
Get enough of those together and you have a high-octane “unruly crowd.” It doesn't matter if they are on Linn Street, Main Street, at the baseball game on Opening Day or burning cars on campus because the beer keg ran dry.
If they riot like Macedonians, I say send in the NATO airstrikes.
I don't get out much anymore, but I don't miss the bars, saloons, taverns, nightclubs, bistros, pubs, beer gardens, cocktail lounges, watering holes, gin mills or cantinas. It's not saintlike virtue. Just lack of stamina.
My idea of a night on the town is going to pick up a pizza. If I never hear another no-talent band play Louie Louie, while my shoes stick to what I hope is spilled beer on the flypaper floor of a juke joint with air so thick you need hedge trimmers to cut a path to the smelly men's room — well, never is still too soon.
So as far as the Parktown goes, I am willing to admit I could be completely wrong. Maybe Cincinnati needs more nightspots.
OK by me, as long as City Hall quits buying drinks on the house with my taxes.
Peter Bronson is editorial page editor of The Enquirer. If you have questions or comments, call 768-8301, or write to 312 Elm Street, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202.
Peter Bronson is editorial page editor of The Enquirer. If you have questions or comments, call 768-8301, or write to 312 Elm Street, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202.
BRONSON ARCHIVE
