City officials in Naperville think long and hard when it comes to solving sticky issues. It wasn’t that long ago when the Naperville city council was dealing with the issue of homeless people and what to do with them. They tried ordinances and that didn’t work. They tried moving the acceptable boundary from one corner of a street to another. They tried making their lives miserable by confiscating their belongings. Then they tried tossing them in the slammer. That didn’t work either. Finally they came up with the magic solution, and bingo, there we no longer any homeless people in Naperville. They simply changed their ‘names’ from ‘homeless people’ to ‘street dwellers’. And then to make it more ‘green’ they tried calling them ‘urban outdoors-men’.
That one worked so good, that city officials in an effort to change the image of downtown Naperville at night from ‘late-night fight nights’ to a more inviting image, pulled the plug on one of the more notorious alcohol establishments (Black Finn) and approved new ownership and here we go again, a new name, (Wise Boxer Pour House). It was either that or change the name to Smart Fighter Guzzle Place. You would think that an even better name would be ‘Family Friendly Sit and Sip’. However Boxing and Pouring carries it’s own image. Sort of like nickel-beer night at baseball game with the first 20,000 people getting miniature bats. Or when proud Americans on July 4th get to enjoy two of their favorite pastimes simultaneously……alcohol and explosives.
As long as the Naperville city council continues to increase the number of liquor licenses in down town Naperville, and increase the density of the area (Water Street Project), the late night fight-night image will likely intensify.
Who knows, maybe changing names does work. There have been no murders, no shootings or stabbings (that we know of), no mayhem, no good-old fashioned Naperville fisticuffs (that we know of). However, it’s also possible that Naperville city officials have solved the problem by hauling alcohol-laden offenders out thru the back door, throwing into a milk-delivery truck and dropping them off in Lisle or Bolingbrook.
Downtown Naperville appears under control at night, about as under control as Mount St. Helens did a minute before ‘last call’.
If only they would have changed it’s name from Mt. St. Helens to Mt. St. Guzzle.
Surely Naperville is safe at night isn’t it? It must be. The Naperville city council says it is.
