Crackdown On Nightlife A Possible Result From Rare Incident
This one goes under “a few idiots ruin a good time for the rest of us.”
A fight broke out in Hermosa Beach on the last Saturday night of June – talk about June Gloom! – and it was substantial enough that the Hermosa Beach Police called in for assistance from neighboring Manhattan and Redondo.
Pier Ave, was blocked off as police worked to contain it to that area.
This comes on the heels of the ultra conservative City Council looking to cut the hours of the bars, down to a ridiculous 11 o’clock during the week. Is this Hermosa Beach or Leisure World!?
Earlier in the week, the police chief put leaflets on every resident’s door warning that fines for alcohol will be tripled on the 4th of July, and that extra police manpower would be out in force to enforce it. The real and only problem on the 4th in Hermosa is parents who let their teenage kids run loose on the Strand unsupervised. Underage drinking is indeed a problem. If the cops would fine the parents that would end things immediately.
The fight will simply serve to add gasoline to a fire that’s beginning to rage in the city against the bars on and around the pier. Anti-bar people will use this as evidence of “Hermosa nightlife out of control!” And the voice of us cool people will go unheard in City Hall because, well, we’re too cool to waste our evenings complaining about every little thing at City Council meetings. Instead, we are out spending money in the city at Taco Tuesday.
I’ve been out in Hermosa hundreds of times and can tell you from personal experience – boots on the ground, rather than complains from people who don’t know any better – that incidents are rare.
I do think the bars should re-think trying to become nightclubs after the sun goes down. Unfortunately, when you play club music you attract a few troublemakers, and a few troublemakers is all it takes to ruin things for the rest of us.
When my friends and I go out, we do so to meet girls and, failing that, to have a great time and try to make everyone around us have a great time. Simple. Some people, however – and this is the case anywhere you go – prefer to get all macho.
As this incident will no doubt prove, the reaction will be to punish not the trouble-making idiots, but everyone else, too.
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