'ENTERTAINMENT LIBERTY'

The bar-closing ordinance will be reconsidered after nearly five years
on the books, but who wants it repealed? Anybody remember what
downtown Gainesville used to look like on the morning after the all-
night parties ended?

The clubs disgorged their patrons onto the streets in the pre-dawn
hours. Drunken and stoned "ravers" topped off the evening by throwing
up or urinating in the alleyways and parking lots. Daytime
businesspeople and cafe owners arrived to open up their shops and
offices, only to find the sidewalks and storefronts trashed. Law
enforcement officers had their hands full trying to maintain some
semblance of order.

And the docs at AGH and Shands were kept hopping into the wee hours,
as victims of "date rape" mickies and abusers of other designer drugs
began to line up at the emergency room door.

Does anybody really miss those "good old days"?

The Gainesville City Commission eventually put an end to all that
chaos and disorder through a series of so-called "anti-rave"
ordinances, including one that forced the bars and clubs to close at 2
a.m. It might have put a damper on all-night raves, but downtown
didn't exactly dry up and blow away as a result.

Oh yes, and we remember the reaction to all of this from UF student
government.

Vowing revenge at the polls, SG leaders sponsored keg parties to
induce students to register and vote. The keggers were very popular
gatherings, but come the next election, the students were, as usual,
no-shows at the polls. The voters who did show up apparently had no
problem with what the commission had done.

So why would the City Commission want to reopen this can of worms now
- -- nearly five years after previous commissioners spent the best part
of a year in vigorous debate before enacting the anti-rave ordinances?

Law enforcement certainly isn't asking for reconsideration. Downtown
businesspeople haven't exactly been clamoring for change. Certainly
the emergency room docs don't miss all the late-night business.

No, the commission unanimously agreed to send the bar closing
ordinance to the Public Safety Committee for reconsideration because,
apparently, UF student government's top town-gown priority remains, as
Commissioner Craig Lowe so artfully put it, "entertainment liberty."

That's PC-speak for the right to party all night in the clubs and
streets of downtown Gainesville.

The two commissioners on the Public Safety Committee are Ed Braddy and
Tony Domenech. They are the two most conservative commissioners, and
both are up for re-election next spring. We would expect, and hope,
that the two will require some extraordinarily convincing evidence
before they'd recommend that the ordinance be changed in the "public
interest."

Still, with all of the challenges and problems facing Gainesville,
it's rather sad to think that bar closing hours (i.e., "entertainment
liberty") is likely to be the top campaign issue of the next City
Commission elections.

Just like old times.