The one-line joke goes like this, “I went to a fight the other night and a hockey game broke out.” Considering tonight is game seven for the Chicago Blackhawks versus Detroit Red Wings, the over-used one-line hockey joke is timely.
It’s also timely when the city of Naperville is continuing to increase the number of liquor licenses approved at city council meetings, in light of the fact that downtown Naperville is becoming synonymous with late-night fight activities in downtown bars.
Never fear though, because city officials have figured out a way for those fight-night bars to no longer have brawls, dust-ups, and all-around mayhem flow from the confines of Naperville establishments into the streets. The solution is simple; just change the name of the bar and put a new owner in charge.
The late-night fight spot formerly known as BlackFinn will be changing its name to something more appropriate like ‘Blue Gil’, or ‘Black & Blue Eye’, and a change of ownership should fix the problem just as it did for the Chicago Cubs when ownership went from Wrigley, to the Chicago Tribune, to the Ricketts family. Three owners and no World Series since 1945, and no World Series win since 1908. Seems to have worked for all us Cubbie fans.
Changing a bar’s name and ownership at best simply moves the offenders from one establishment to another. Look at downtown Naperville’s bars as apartments in a building. When the exterminator comes to rid an apartment of pests, the pests simply go to another apartment. Continuing to add more and more liquor licenses in a confined area, simply increases the probability of more mayhem to surface.
Considering Naperville city officials haven’t seen a new liquor license application they don’t like, other solutions need to be considered. One solution could be to require all individuals to rent a city-issued hard-hat when entering the downtown area after 5pm. That’s a guaranteed money-make for the city. Another possibility would be to have armed Naperville police officers at the entrance of each bar, similar to what city officials did to residents at city council meetings when the topic of Smart Meters was on the agenda.
Who knows, maybe changing the name of a bar will work. It worked when Naperville city officials eliminated the ‘homeless’ problem by changing the name to ‘street dwellers.
Let’s increase the number of business’s and not increase the number of parking spaces. Ooop’s I forgot that’s revenue for the city in parking tickets…Let’s put up a hotel along the elusive “River Walk” that will add to the parking problem,no doubt want favoritism to parking spaces, have no where to put adequate satiation and waste disposal. The dick tracy statue will become a lounging place for hotel patron to have their evening cocktail and leave their trash strewn on the ground, creating cost for park district and driving up fee’s for everything. The creation of a “Bally Doyle” in the old Fredenhagen building corner of Chicago and main, will create more parking problems. Then when the river rises as has this past spring, and these new business get a lobby full of river water, river rats and grounds full of goose poop,who’s the first place to turn to, to cry fowl? The City council. Increasing the size of Naperville will have to stop when we, What? Run out of places to put people? Then we need a waiting list to move in?
Dave,
I think that the new hotel is a good idea, and it has a parking deck, so no parking problems. North Central College and the downtown need a hotel, and it will increase revenues in many ways.
Ballydoyle is not a “creation.” it’s a good use of the space. It has always been a restaurant, back to the Morgan’s Crossing days 20+ years ago. When people, including some City Council members, talk about the increase in people from Ballydoyle, I’m a little confused. I think that there will be a shift from Quigley’s (a Mayor and Council favorite) and other bars and restaurants to Ballydoyle, but not a whole new group of people. In fact, the Police Chief used your argument to get more cops in the downtown. How about looking at the crime, or lack thereof, across the non-downtown areas, and reallocate resources? But, that would be too hard.
Advocating that government keep businesses out of commercial areas is fantastic! You guys must have read book! We should shut down a bunch of them in downtown and turn them into squats for the homeless.