It is a classic public-private partnership — a joint venture if you will — between the city of Charlotte and Bank of America. In other words, no one owns the Uptown Transit Center. And its sole tenant — CATS — hires out private security to patrol the property.
Except when 30,000 anti-social types clog it up, in which case the trouble gets handed over to CMPD.
See a problem here? Because no one entity is well and truly responsible for the Transit Center it is essentially a no man’s land. And blurry property rights leads to blurry rule of law — as the full-on riots of the other night show.
Not a week ago I had someone roll their eyes at me when I said that the Transit Center would have to be closed when the DNC comes to town. Too big a security risk, I tried to explain, nothing at all to do with “showcasing” Uptown as too many local fools seem to think.
Now what do you think the odds might be that CATS is running buses out of the facility willy-nilly? Gunplay and mayhem are not the kind of thing the Secret Service considers acceptable.
