The debate over Winston Salem’s proposed public safety ordinance continues:
Winston-Salem police said yesterday that if the city council approves a proposed ordinance aimed at improving public safety in nightclubs, then they will take a zero-tolerance policy toward violence in bars and late-night music venues.
Lt. Chris Peddle and Sgt. Tom Peterson, who have worked closely with Police Chief Pat Norris and city officials to create the ordinance, said they want bar owners to call 911 every time violence breaks out so that troublemakers can be arrested.
Good enough, right? Uh, no:
Business owners who failed to call to report activity such as fighting would be penalized, Norris told bar and music-venue owners at a meeting yesterday.
“If you don’t call us and (violence) continues to escalate out into the street, and you haven’t participated in the violence-reduction program, then you become an unsafe business,” Norris said.
…….Bar owners renewed their concerns that the proposed ordinance is not specific enough about what it takes to be called a safe business.
“Safe and unsafe is undefined” in the ordinance, said Richard Emmett, who owns The Garage nightclub. “That’s what’s scary to clubs.… How do we know exactly where we stand?”
If Emmett is concerned about the ordinance, there must really be problems, considering the fact that he was really says something, considering he was assaulted in his own club a couple of weeks ago.
