Pressure Cooker

At the end of last summer, when Westport streets were swamped on Saturday nights by under-21 kids hanging out under the peremptory eyes of 50-some cops and private security officers, I asked Second District Councilman Paul Danaher whether 3 a.m. clubs were part of the reason for the large underage crowd. He brushed aside the connection and laid blame on parents who didn't control their children. Danaher viewed any talk of eliminating 3 a.m. liquor license holders in Westport as economically foolhardy.

"We can't kill the goose that lays the golden egg," he said. "Westport butters this city's bread. (It's) an extremely important commercial area."

Danaher has a point, and for the time being, the cold weather will keep the Westport sidewalks open and the goose comfortable. But business owners are worried about what will happen when the weather warms. "We cannot afford to have as many people hanging out in the street. It hurts business," says Greg Lever, executive director of the Westport Merchants Association.

There's some indication Westport has already begun to feel the pain. Though the Plaza Merchants Association says there's no conscious effort to attract more young adults to the Plaza, a spokeswoman for the group doesn't deny that those people are coming. The west end of the shopping district continues to evolve into an eating and drinking zone. Weekend crowds, the kind that traditionally have gone to Westport, are landing at O'Dowd's Little Dublin Irish Pub, the newly remodeled Grandfalloon, and Mi Cocina. Young women, the spokeswoman says, feel safer on the Plaza than in Westport. And though women don't spend as much on drinks and entertainment as men do, where there are women, there are men spending money on food and drink -- a fact Westport bar owners know well.

To compete with the Plaza's changing demographic, the Westport Merchants Association will have to figure out how to keep the underage crowd away come spring -- or at least, as I've noted before, control the crowd without stepping on people's rights and monopolizing Kansas City cops whose services are needed elsewhere ("Saturday Night Special," August 17). The dilemma has been handed to former police chief Larry Joiner (who didn't return my phone calls) and former city attorney Kathleen Hauser, who referred all questions to Lever. "We've been in a dialogue with them for months seeking a practical, feasible, and fair solution," Lever says. "We're working on having something in place by the spring."

At a November 8 Midtown Presidents Council meeting, Tim Knight, owner of Precision Optics, and Kyle Kelly of Kelly's Westport Inn told about a dozen neighborhood leaders that they're looking for solutions. "We're getting all factions together: city hall, police, and neighborhoods," Kelly said. One solution, enforcing the curfew ordinance, was deemed unworkable because it's "difficult to enforce (and) very manpower-intensive with one police officer per child," said Knight. Another option was officially designating Westport as an entertainment district in order to restrict underage access to the area after a certain hour. Kelly said that move increased the chance of a legal challenge by the American Civil Liberties Union. Still another possibility was establishing a Community Improvement District in Westport, using the special sales tax proceeds collected within the district to pay for increased security. Kelly said that idea had been put on hold.

One idea that Knight and Kelly didn't mention was phasing out all or some of Westport's 3 a.m. licenses. It's something bar and restaurant owners won't even begin to discuss. Currently, 13 Westport drinking establishments hold the licenses. "Three a.m. doesn't play into this," says Lever. "Does it have an impact? Yes, but it's a totally separate issue."

Not for Major Anthony Ell, the Kansas City police commander in charge of the officers who tried to maintain order in Westport last summer. (The officers likely will be back in 2001.) Ell doesn't like having 45 officers tied up with crowd control until 3:30 or 4 a.m. when they could be out on the street. Also, since Mayor Kay Barnes' special commission on drunk driving released its findings last month, Ell sees a connection between DUIs and bars that stay open until 3 a.m. According to 1999 statistics, 47 percent of the DUI arrests citywide happened between midnight and 4 a.m. on any given day.

Last summer Ell suggested that some Westport bars close at 1:30 a.m. instead of 3 a.m. It got nowhere. Bar owners argued that since Westport is an entertainment district (though unofficial), closing at 3 a.m. is appropriate. Off the record, some merchants say certain Westport establishments couldn't stay in business without the 3 a.m. license. Ell admits that Westport businesses "control their destiny," but he wants more than the "entertainment district" answer. "I'm adamant about having some changes down there," Ell says. "When you reduce the number of DUIs, it betters (the situation for) everybody because DUIs kill. If we leave it up to the nighttime operators, they're not going to do anything. They'll just mess around and will have something forced upon them."