City Hall has had enough of after-hours noise, rowdiness and urination and approves a plan to shut down fast food eateries

Victoria’s downtown fast-food outlets may not be to blame for the rowdiness outside their doors after the bars close, but they will nonetheless bear the weight of a new bylaw the city’s legislative services office is now drafting.

“They are not doing anything wrong,” says the Victoria Police Department’s operations officer, Sgt. Jim Simpson. “But their business model is a magnet for undesirable behaviour.”

For problems read “urination, fighting, violence, wilful mischief and nuisance behavior,” rhymes off Victoria’s director of legislative services Rob Woodland.

There may have been a time when such behaviour wasn’t so much a problem, at least for anyone but the police, when Victoria’s late night downtown contained few inhabitants. But that time is over, says Simpson, who has been calling for restrictions on late-night takeout eateries since he took on his current job five years ago. Now there are many downtown residents in condos in renovated heritage buildings and many more in new purpose-built residential structures like the Falls, overlooking the Strathcona Hotel and its edgy and bustling street scene.

The concept approved by city council in principle last month will see food carts, takeout operations and restaurants with seating under 300 square feet close at 1 a.m., when the pubs close, and an hour before the clubs follow suit.

Woodland and Simpson are clear they don’t want to shut anyone down, but they do want there to be more restaurant seating.

Takeout proprietors are angry. A few months ago they were the target of a nuisance bylaw holding them responsible for the street behaviour of those they served. But it proved unenforceable. Now they say they will take a big revenue hit. Jeff Hurry, owner of Joint Pizzeria, says he will have to lay off three full-time staff.

Second Slice Pizza owner Mohammed Hajivalizadeh reports that 40 per cent of his earnings come from the after-hours traffic.

Police should target the rowdies, not the restaurants, says Pita Pit owner Ian Laird. “They are going after people who are selling good.” Laird proposes a late-night bus service to run people home—after they’ve had their pita, presumably.

Though he doesn’t blame the bars for “overserving,” some do. However, according to Simpson, the bar owners’ claim that many people leave their establishments drunk after only a drink or two because they came “with their bellies already full” of liquor. And Simpson has observed bar video footage which verifies the claim. Moroever, it is as hard to convict a bar of overservice as it is to convict a pizzeria of committing a nuisance.

It seems neither the takeout shops nor the bars are to blame but the easiest way to deal with the problem is to shut the former or force them to expand their seating.

Councillor Sonya Chandler thinks it’s better for drinkers to have a quick bite than to hop in their cars and drive off inebriated, but Simpson says “a wedge of pizza” won’t do much to sober someone up. They need to sit down in a restaurant for a longer time.

Simpson says the bylaw is part of larger strategy to make the downtown a fit place to live; another component is the police department’s and City Hall’s resistance to issuing more liquor licences.

Heartily applauding the proposed bylaw was Earl Wilde, president and general manager of the Victoria Regent Waterfront Hotel and Suites. Beset for years by the noisy patrons BoomBoom Room, now defunct, The Regent’s guests still suffer, according to Wilde from the street noise associated with late-night, low-seatage eateries. “Picture 300 or 400 people outside your residence screaming, fighting and urinating in your garden at 3 a.m” he wrote in a letter to the Times Colonist. “All our pleas to the owners, including the offer of financial assistance to relocate, have been ignored.”

Also supportive was Ken Kelly, general manager of the Downtown Victoria Business Association. While the association wants a lively downtown, he says, “We also want to ensure tranquility for visitors staying downtown overnight. And if your hotel is adjacent to a late night, walk-through eatery, this can be a problem.”

Kelly agrees that the individuals themselves who raise a ruckus should ideally be the targets of punitive action, but says it just isn’t workable for the police to address the issue one-to-one. “They don’t have the manpower to do that.” The nuisance bylaw has already been undermined by the Pita Pit’s stout legal defence, says Kelly, leaving city council with the current proposal.” he says, adding, “The DVBA board hasn’t taken a position on the new plan.”

But others found the proposed bylaws unfair. Lawyer David Mulroney mocked city council for misplaced priorities.” The problems caused by drugs, homelessness, untreated mental illness and over-served alcohol patrons all pale in comparison to the problems caused by those pernicious purveyors of post-midnight pepperoni pizza,” he wrote in his letter to the TC. Robert Randall, chairman of the Downtown Residents Association, also doesn’t like the fact that fast food outlets are being punished for what drunks do. “They are acting up because of being over serviced at bars, not because having too much pizza,” he says, while admitting that many come into the downtown bars after consuming alcohol elsewhere. “They are the ones who should be punished,” he says, calling for aggressive ticketing by police for public urination and other overt rowdiness.

Randall says of his membership: “We want the downtown to be a safe place to live, but we moved here because we like the vitality and excitement. We want there to be more things to do late at night not less, and not just the bar scene.” But as for the bar scene, after closing time, “We want to calm them down, chill them out and funnel them out of the downtown. “ He proposes a later operating bus system.

Does the proposed bylaw mean the end of late-night takeout downtown? The DVBA’s Kelly hopes that an accommodation can be worked out. “What if the bars worked with places like the Pita Pit, agreeing to sell their product from around midnight on, so that people can eat in the bars?” he proposes. BE