Jeremy Lent Photo
Lighthouse Point Park may yet go dry in the near future — if a proposed booze ban has better luck when it comes before the Board of Aldermen for a second time.
After a lengthy public hearing on Monday night, the board’s Legislation Committee voted 5 – 1 to send the booze ban to the full board for a vote. The sole dissenter was Yale Alderman Mike Jones (in photo, third from right). Jones said he would rather see police step up enforcement of existing public behavior ordinances than enforce a law that would prevent the many park patrons who drink responsibly from doing so.
Lighthouse Point Park is currently New Haven’s only public park in which alcohol use is permitted, thanks to an exemption in a decades-old city ordinance outlawing alcohol in all other parks. Ward 25 Alderman Greg Dildine (at right in photo) recently researched the ordinance but couldn’t find any recorded reason for the Lighthouse exemption.
This was the second time that the committee approved the ban for consideration by the full board. The first time was in May, after two public hearings about the issue. But when the board considered the ban in June , so many concerns came up — some similar to Jones’s — that the aldermen voted to send the bill back to committee for more discussion.
That extra discussion occurred on Monday night. Eight New Haveners, all in support of the ban, showed up to testify. Among them was Janis Astor del Valle, who lives close to Lighthouse Point and described the various alcohol containers that she regularly finds while walking her dog in the park on summer mornings.
Nancy Ahern, who lives across from Edgewood Park, noted that most Lighthouse patrons arrive in cars, meaning that alcohol use in the park can easily lead to drunk driving.
Melissa Papantones, also of Westville, said that “there are so many tragedies that could be avoided by the simple passage of this ban.” For instance, drunk swimmers in distress pose a danger to any lifeguard who attempts a rescue, Papantones pointed out.
Next, West Rock Alderman Darnell Goldson got up to testify, having observed the hearing from the audience. (Goldson is not a member of the Legislation Committee.) Goldson (in photo) pointed out that the testimony so far had provided only “anecdotal” evidence of problems stemming from alcohol use.
“I haven’t seen the evidence: I want good, hard evidence that a lot of people’s peace is being disturbed … that there’s been irresponsible use of alcohol,” Goldson (pictured) told the committee.
A response to Goldson soon came from Lt. Jeff Hoffman, who oversees policing for the East Shore (where Lighthouse Point is located) and who testified earlier in the meeting. Hoffman provided the committee with a list of the 250-plus incidents at Lighthouse Point to which officers have responded since January 2007. Only eight of the incident reports mentioned drunkenness — in most cases, alcohol poisoning — as a cause for police action.
“However, that’s eight times that someone was who-knows-how close to death,” Hoffman clarified. “Eight times [in three and a half years] is far too many in my opinion.”
Satisfied with the evidence, Newhallville Alderman Charles Blango (second from left in top photo) shifted attention to the portion of the ban proposal that would still permit alcohol at policed and permitted events in the Lighthouse Point carousel building. Blango expressed concern about the “double standard” in the carousel provision.
“When people drink in the carousel, then step out and get in their car, how are they going to be safer than anyone drinking outside?” Blango asked. “If we’re going to infringe on people’s liberties, we have to be consistent.”
Blango proposed amending the ban to include the carousel building. At that point, Parks Commissioner and Morris Cove Alderwoman Arlene DePino, who drafted the ban and who was on hand to testify Monday night, cautioned that the city has already rented out the carousel for after-hours private events throughout the next two years. Some of those rental contracts might include clauses about allowing alcohol, so Blango’s proposal — an immediate stop to booze in the carousel — could land the city in court.
Blango stood by the principle of his amendment but agreed to wait on the issue until the committee can consider a broader proposal that would ban alcohol at all special events in city parks. Such events do occur outside of Lighthouse Point. For instance, the city held a ticketed Fourth of July festival this year at the summit of East Rock, and the wine and beer flowed, as Goldson reported.
As the discussion entered its third hour, Lemar urged his colleagues to decide soon about reapproving the ban, rather than wait to collect more evidence or to get testimony for Blango’s amendment.
“We owe it to our colleagues and neighbors who have worked hard on this issue to reach a conclusion,” Lemar said.
Agreeing to an end of discussion, five of the committee’s six members voted to send the ban, unaltered in language, back to the full board. Jones gave the sole “nay” and afterward explained his reasoning.
“I’m not fighting for the people who litter our parks or put others in danger,” Jones said. “But I want to see our police officers aggressively enforce the laws that already exist.” Under current policing practices at Lighthouse, Jones said, enforcement of the ban might become overly “complaint-based”: Most of the alcohol citations would stem from called-in complaints rather than the observations of officers uniformly patrolling the park.
At a previous hearing on the ban, Jones implied that those complaints might target minorities and younger people — even those drinking responsibly — more than other demographics.
It remains to be seen whether concerns like Jones’s will once again derail approval of the ban by the full board.