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Is that bar 3 doors down from your apartment keeping you up at night with its loud music? Is it attracting the wrong kind of people to your neighborhood? The kind that puke in your yard and leave trash all over your stoop? Well, kick them out! Tell them you don't want them in your neighborhood! It's about to get easier than you thought.
Mayor Daley is introducing a new ordinance to City Council. Under the measure, 51% of voters living within 500 feet of a liquor store or bar could sign petitions saying it's having a negative impact on the neighborhood. The owner of the liquor establishment would then have to prove that they're not a nusience. As it is right now, residents who complain have the burden of proof. This ordinance would switch that burden over to the business owner.
Negative impact is defined as hurting property values, increasing noise, litter or congestion, or leading to repeated arrests in the area. If a petition is signed by more than 50% of the neighborhood, the bar can't prove they're not having a negative impact, and the commission rules against a bar, the bar will close and can only reopen with a court order. Right now the bar or liquor store may stay open until all of its appeals are exhausted.
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Great, NIMBY gone wild.
I will not be happy until every unpleasant, unusual or unpredictable attribute of the city has been scrubbed from sight. Then I still won't be happy.
Would Wrigley Field qualify for this? Or Comisky Park (fine, I mean Cellular Field)?
I don't live by either, but curious; don't fans get loud and litter?
When my trophy wife and our dog (of course) move into that new "hot" and up and coming neighborhood we're going to make sure our condo/loft is next to an old established bar so we can make sure to complain about the noise. Thanks Mayor Daley glad to see your crusading for OUR interests.
When my trophy wife and our dog (of course) move into that new "hot" and up and coming neighborhood we're going to make sure our condo/loft is next to an old established bar so we can make sure to complain about the noise. Thanks Mayor Daley glad to see you're crusading for OUR interests.
51% of the voters? The voter registration rate in Chicago seems to be 67%, so it would only take roughly 34% of the adults living within 500 feet to close a place down.
So basically any bar I don't like is far game eh? I can understand not wanting live next to a crackhouse, but I think this has the potential to be seriously abused ... because you know for everyone who thinks the Goldstar is great there is probably some annoying yuppie who thinks it is an eyesore.
A perfect example of how this could go down:
http://www.loungeax.com/moving.html
That was the first thing I thought of too, CL. Plus, all the problems Sidetrack has been having.
When you read the story you can see why it would be effective to have such a law in place to give the local residents more of a say, but 51% seems awfully low. Does anyone know if there has to be a quorum? In theory, a few people who live just within the 500 feet limit could shut a place down for the hundreds or thousands who live just beyond it. Rare case, sure, but Sidetraxx is a great example.
Have any of you ever lived near a problem bar? One that serves the neighborhood drunks, grifters and prostitutes? The stuff that happened with Lounge Ax could happen then and it can still happen ... this new law will hopefully keep those "evil yuppie residents" everybody hates from voting entire areas dry when there's only one bar causing all of the problems. So don't worry ... there will still be 167 bars within a one-mile radius of your apartment. I think this law will have very little impact on northside neighborhoods ... on the South and West sides (and in Uptown) though, it could work to sustain the good businesses and licenses that can lead to an area's improvement. Voting a commercial area dry can kill it.
And yet Lounge Ax and Sidetrack are both on the North side. And they had problems without the "help" of this law.
Looking at Aaron's story on the Gay Games, I wonder if this law wouldn't make it easier for certain neighborhoods to force out bars that cater to bars that further the "evil homosexual agenda." Or hell, even dance bars with those "scary" Goth kids.
This is fucked. Daley sucks.