On December 22, 2011 the Scottsdale Republic printed my response to an earlier editorial of theirs, "Real bar area issue: Clash of generations," December 16, 2011:

Recently an editorial appeared in these pages which attempted to trivialize the real, serious problems caused by Scottsdale's Downtown bar district by characterizing the issue as a "clash of Generations." The editorial quotes a comment I made at a Council meeting where I pointed out the basic problem is the city has allowed too high a concentration of bars in an area surrounded by existing residences and businesses. In response, the editorial asks "Have you ever heard such critics complain there are too many stores at Fashion Square or too many gift shops in Old Town?"

The answer to that question is simple: shoppers from Fashion Square and the gift shops in Old Town are not urinating, defecating, sleeping on or otherwise trashing our streets. Nor are they spraying gang graffiti on local businesses and homes, fighting in our parking garages, or gracing our fine local jail with their presence.

On the other hand, too many of the customers of our Downtown bar district are doing all of these things, which makes comparing these bars with the stores in Fashion Square and Old Town simply ludicrous.

Painting this issue as geezers versus hipsters is just another in a long line of attempts by the defenders of the Downtown bar district to distract the public's attention from the real and measurable negative impacts of the highest concentration of bars in Maricopa County.

The first shot in this PR war was to claim there is no problem. When local activists produced voluminous evidence of real problems, the next dodge was to claim the city was taking bold steps to fix them.

That claim went down in flames when one of our senior staff members admitted at a City Council meeting that, six months after the City Council passed a noise ordinance, the city had yet to even order the noise meters to enforce that ordinance!

Not to mention that, eight years after the city began requiring Conditional Use Permits (CUPs) for bars in Downtown, we have yet to even consider revoking a bar CUP.

The next dodge was to claim the proliferation of bars was good for the local economy. This was given the lie when our City Treasurer reported the city receives about $400K/year in revenue from the Downtown bar district but spends about $1.2M in costs for public safety there.

That number doesn't even include the costs for cleanup, not to mention the harder to quantify but nonetheless real costs to the neighboring businesses and homes due to their diminished quality of life.

The cost/benefit numbers also highlight the fact that this is not just a problem for those residents who live near the Downtown bar district - all Scottsdale taxpayers suffer from the drain this problem puts on the city treasury.

Don't be fooled -- this isn't about the morality of bars or partying. It's about Scottsdale city government not using all the tools at our disposal to protect our residents from the real, measurable negative impacts of the Downtown bar district. We can and should do better.