Guelph Councillor Bob Bell wants bars to pull their weight
Should bar owners be paying more to have the police to deal with what happens outside their bar after their customers have left? Guelph Councillor Bob Bell believes they should.
Bell has been a city councilor in Guelph since 2006 and this year he proposed a new financial strategy for downtown policing. Bell has long been advocating this new strategy, in which bar owners – rather than taxpayers – would take on more of the costs associated with extra policing and cleanup for the downtown bar scene.
Bell proposed a “bar stool tax” to the city council, which, as the Guelph Tribune explains, would essentially “impose an extra tax on bars and link the size of the tax to the size of the bar.” Yet, on Monday, Nov. 4 a motion was passed to end further investigation into this strategy. Now Bell has come up with a new plan: one similar in effect to what happens in Hamilton’s downtown sector, Hess Village.
Bell is now arguing that bar owners should pay the police department half the cost of having police officers stationed in front of their bars, rather than paying City Hall.
“It could lead to a reduction in police costs charged to the average taxpayer,” explained Bell.
Council also spoke of the Safe Semester program that is responsible for blocking off the downtown nightlife core on weekends early in the semester. This program began in 2012 and is responsible for the regulation of downtown Guelph by police officers, as well as other safety regulations.
The first Safe Semester program of 2012 cost about $25,000, and city departments, police and transit covered this cost. Bell had originally proposed that all the costs of extra downtown policing and cleaning be included in the Safe Semester budget, but this idea was turned down.
Bell estimates the true cost of extra cleanup and policing related to the nightlife scene, is up to $800,000 annually.
Even though this cost is substantial, Bell believes it is worth the price. There has been a decrease in fighting and unsafe activity downtown Guelph.
“The level of policing downtown now is adequate…Nobody steps out of line downtown now. The moment somebody raises their voice now, there are four police officers there within 15 seconds,” Bell told the Tribune.
The police are doing a great job in the downtown core and Bell wants this to continue; but rather than have taxpayers take on this financial burden, he is hoping that bar owners will cover more of these costs.
With this increase in policing, students can feel safer in their choice to go out and celebrate in downtown Guelph with friends, but they might now ask themselves who, the bar owner or the taxpayer, should be responsible for the additional costs incurred.