we’re not just pushing protectionism for those with Class B licenses, either. If we had our way, we’d let any bar or club that wants to do so stay open until dawn, and we believe it would still be a good thing for Little Rock. No foolin’. Here’s why:
1 Because great cities have great nightlife. We’ve got a couple hundred thousand tourists a year streaming through Little Rock these days, and those are just the overnighters. That’s not counting all the people who drive in from the hinterlands on the weekends to party and listen to music. Have you been on President Clinton Avenue around midnight on a Saturday lately? It’s a zoo down there, man. Enough spangley outfits, revving motorcycles, stripper shoes, big hair and questionable undergarments to stage “Jersey Shore: The Musical” right this minute. Some people want to party. They want to dress up and drench themselves in sweet smellums. They want to drink and laugh and sweat and listen to music and have a good time. Some of them even want to do all that stuff ’til dawn. There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, there’s something right about it, especially if we want to help this city break the Bible Belt stereotype that has the rest of the world thinking Arkansas is still “Li’l Abner” meets “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Three little hours might not seem like much, but to the tourists who stay up until 2 a.m. only to find their entertainment options from then until daybreak are limited to Waffle House, it’s a big deal. Do we really want to take the first step toward the re-podunkification of Little Rock, led by the same kind of prudes who wrote the Blue Laws back in the day to help make sure everybody kept the Sabbath holy whether they wanted to or not? Here’s the facts, ma’am: When people travel to a city, they don’t take home fond memories of Johnny Gubmint knocking the drink out of their hand, yanking the plug on the jukebox and telling them it’s time to go to bed. Sure, there is bound to be some drunken bad behavior associated with keeping these Little Rock clubs open until 5 a.m. (though not as much as you may have been led to believe).
But that, friends, is the cost of making sure Little Rock keeps a reputation as a city that doesn’t roll up the sidewalks when the chickens go to roost.
2 Because the “public safety” argument is a red herring. Since some on the City Board started talking about trying to limit the hours of the 5 a.m. clubs, the core of their argument has been about concern for public safety — that the clubs are associated with bad behavior. “Nothing good happens after 2 a.m.” has been the rallying cry of those wanting to close latenight clubs, who are always ready to trot out the number of police calls to these venues between the hours of 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. Crime is being caused by the nogoodniks who frequent these clubs! If only they were at home watching funny cat videos on YouTube! Well, before we pronounce Electric Cowboy a hive of scum and villainy, consider the following comparison. The Arkansas Times made a Freedom of Information Act request to the LRPD for all requests for police assistance made from the Walmart Supercenter stores at 8801 Baseline Road and 2700 Shackleford Road. Let’s just say that if public safety is the issue, then the City Board better get its big pants on and tell Walmart it will have to close for the public good as well. There were a total of 413 police calls made to the eight clubs with active Class B permits in 2013. Meanwhile, there were 692 calls made to the Walmart Supercenter at 8801 Baseline Road alone, and that particular store actually closes from midnight to 6 a.m. every night. There were 596 calls made to the 24-hour Walmart Supercenter at 2700 Shackleford in 2013, with police responding 46 times between the hours of 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. last year. That’s almost 8 percent of the yearly police calls to that location, and Uncle Wally sells duct tape, butcher knives, shovels, sheet plastic, thong underwear, Nyquil and Billy Ray Cyrus albums all night long. Oh, the humanity! Meanwhile, the clubs themselves have also compiled some figures. The Arkansas Licensed Beverage Association (ALBA) — a coalition consisting of Elevations, Discovery, Triniti, Electric Cowboy and Midtown — says the num-
ber of total LRPD calls made to all the 5 a.m. clubs in 2013 was less than 0.3 percent of the 146,668 calls the department received last year. That’s three-tenths of 1 percent. Not exactly a crime wave. If the argument for closing the 5 a.m. clubs is one of safety, then the city needs to stop playing favorites and close Walmart and everything else at 2 a.m. From there, they can order lights-out after “Jimmy Kimmel” and have the vet put a microchip in everybody’s neck in case any of us get lost. But seriously, folks: One of the reasons we live in Arkansas’s biggest city is because if we get a hankering for lime sherbet at 3:30 in the morning, we can have it. Same with ordering a beer. If you want to have a 24-hour economy, let’s have a 24-hour economy. It’s a good thing. It allows adults to make choices on when they spend their money. If a small percentage of those adults run afoul of the law, deal with them, whatever the venue.
3 Because adults generally don’t want other adults to set their bedtime. Like City Director Adcock, we don’t generally frequent nightclubs at 3 in the morning. But we understand that laws shouldn’t be decided by what we, personally, don’t like to do. The list of things that are (and should be) legal but that you yourself have absolutely no interest in doing is a long one, and the composition of that list varies according to who you are. It’s guaranteed that there are activities out there that interest lots of people but leave you cold, perhaps baffled, maybe even a little disgusted. That’s fine; you’re allowed to think those whose sense of decorum doesn’t match yours are a bunch of deviants. You can think anything you want. It’s when you start trying to use the hammer and tongs of the law to straighten out the supposedly kinked behavior of others that the problems begin to surface. Actually, we’re upset on a daily basis by questionable behavior we see around us. We’re dismayed by individuals who sink the cost of a new West Little Rock McMansion into a garageful of shiny antique cars or a NASA-level home entertainment system. Or who spend a beautiful fall day chain-smoking their way through a 12-hour slot-machine
If you want to have a 24-hour economy, let’s have a 24-hour economy. It’s a good thing. It allows adults to make choices on when they spend their money. If a small percentage of those adults run afoul of the law, deal with them, whatever the venue.
Continued on page 17 www.arktimes.com
August 14, 2014
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