Last Halloween, like the one before it, there was a riot.
When bars let out, lots of drunken, rowdy, costumed people fled to the streets. They proceeded to cause a whole lot of damage. The Den had merchandise stolen. The University Inn found its rooms littered with glass. Tomboy Girl had to move off of State Street. Lots of bad things happened, many caused by people out of state - people with little vested interest in the happiness of Madison businesses.
This, of course, sparked some concern in the offices of alders and the mayor. And after 11 months of research on how to keep State Street from instantaneously filling with inebriated individuals, the city has settled on a multi-tiered plan.
The first step will be to fine people more, obviously a dig at the frugal looter. The second will be the installation of televisions, projectors and sound systems to play calming music and serene images in the apparent hopes that adding smaller, easier-to-throw, yet still breakable objects will divert rioters' attention from storefronts. The third will be the addition of hay rides on State Street in an effort to draw families into the center of a high-blood alcohol, groping, mob-psychology mass.
This parallels last year's solution to rioting: More police activity, more distractions for drunks. With this strategy's track record it is hard to be optimistic, especially with such Mickey Mouse solutions as peaceful videos. For the second year in a row, the city and the state have ignored the real cause of riots-lots of people who drank lots of booze hitting the riled-up street at the same time.
For the last two years the same idea keeps getting floated around in every discussion about Halloween: Staggering or eliminating bar time. It is a good plan. It keeps impressionable people from becoming a huge mob on a day when everyone is a little more rowdy than normal. We could be sheltering the city from people apt to break it. We could be staggering bar times in a way that forces drinkers away from State Street when they move from closed bars to open bars. We aren't doing either. Instead we ignore the most direct solution and concentrate on hay rides. That is just plain negligent.
The state sets the bar time, the city has the responsibility to lobby for it. Madison deserves a full-on attempt to squelch the problem, or we'll become that city with the yearly riot. The state deserves better than to focus its police forces on a single city, while the whole of Wisconsin needs protection. It is time to address the real problem.
