A.G. Gancarski
Block parties are not a concern in most of Jacksonville, yet in what the sheriff’s office calls Zone 5, the gatherings predominate … and are becoming more popular year over year.
In FY 2015, there were 135 of these events in the city. In FY 2016, there were 171.
According to Chief Deloris Patterson, the commander for Zone 5, the vast majority are in her zone. And some Saturday nights, there can be as many as five at a time, near places like W. 45th Street and Edward Waters College.
This creates a problem for law enforcement: traffic control, violence, extralegal carousing in the street.
“We always have to go and shut them down,” Patterson said.
“In other districts,” said Beaches Councilman Bill Gulliford, “we don’t have this issue.”
One part of the solution: a bill filed by Councilman Reggie Brown, imposing a 90-day moratorium on these events.
If the city council passes that on Mar. 28, that would block the parties until the end of June.
However, as Brown has said, the moratorium is an attempt to provide time to refine guidelines for these events.
There are myriad holes in the current code, and a Wednesday meeting of various council members, JSO brass, and city employees was intended to help move the process toward resolution.
How successful was it?
As one observer of the council put it, on a scale of one to five in terms of finding resolution, the council is at “1 1/2 to 2.”
Meanwhile, a discussion of possible prohibitions of uses of vacant lots for events led Council President Lori Boyer to wonder if “Constitutional” concerns would be raised.
______
Some potential solutions advanced by law enforcement during the workshop-style session: tightening code language, requiring insurance, and charging a nominal fee for permitting.
Concerns were raised about the code requirement that 60 percent of people on the closed street sign a waiver allowing the festivities.
Public works does a cursory review of these signatures, and party organizers have been known to pay off people for their signatures.
Gulliford’s take: the 60 percent rule is a “silly provision.”
Discussion also ensued about potentially blocking block parties when people lived near a “suitable park,” though the definition of “suitable” and a mutually-agreed upon idea of proximity proved elusive.
One JSO representative said there’s “no future in block parties in densely populated areas.”
_____
The biggest pushback was from the only attorney on the council and, incidentally, the council president.
Lori Boyer, noted for seeing the potential effects of hastily-drafted law, noted that attempts to solve a problem in one part of the city might be “painting with a broad brush,” leading to unintended consequences elsewhere. such as in her district.
“The challenge,” said Boyer, “is trying to capture what we’re concerned about.”
Brown advanced a theory about the danger of parking lot shindigs: “if a person can use a parking lot … that creates the same problem.”
Which led Boyer to extrapolate: “if someone wants to have a wedding on their property, they need to have a permit,” if one takes a law predicated around that to its logical extreme.
“I have great concerns about regulating activity on private property,” Boyer said later on. Prohibiting parties on “vacant lots,” Boyer said, may create a “Constitutional problem.”
Brown was not dissuaded.
“Everyone knows what this is about,” the councilman said.
______
JSO’s take: the city should move forward with the moratorium, with law enforcement shutting down the verboten gatherings until the city rolls out new and improved code language.
While nothing is remotely codified after the Wednesday meeting, Brown seeks to eliminate the ordinance allowing block parties, and requiring people who might want street closures to use the street closure form, which would allow the sheriff’s office to vet the requester.
_____
Councilman Brown has raised issues previously that encountered resistance in the council.
A bill still discussed by media with long memories: the proposed ban on backing into driveways on 2015.
Months of fruitless debate on the council ensued, with nothing approaching resolution in ordinance.
Brown’s case was that people in certain areas of town used abandoned cars as drop points for extralegal transactions, and backed into driveways to obscure tags.
However, most of Jacksonville doesn’t experience such issues.
And therein lies the disconnect.
