City Council Meeting an Eye Opener

For some reason I still can’t fathom, I attended last week’s meeting of the City Council. (It’s where I wrote most of the recent bridge 550 post.) This was my first experience with the current City Council, and I have to admit – with many surprises – that I was favorably impressed.

Perhaps that overstates the case. Let’s say I was less negatively impressed than I expected to be.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
Grebien’s run for mayor opened up his at-large seat, and Albert Vitali, who used to represent Ward 3, got back on the council that way. Vitali, who’s new to me, struck me as younger and energetic. In fact, his provisional getting-it quotient went way up when he suggested that the pulsing activity on CF’s Dexter St on a sunny Saturday afternoon might actually be a desirable thing. Can you believe…?

Another big change is Ward 5 councilman Jean Phillipe Barros, who defeated Mary Bray by a narrow margin. Again, younger and energetic, he also could have a high getting-it quotient, scoring well with a suggestion that direct negotiations, not litigation, be a path to the resolution of an issue. My stars, will wonders never cease?

New council president Henry Kinch, who currently represents Ward 3, has a matter-of-fact appeal. I really don’t know enough to form an opinion, but that never stopped me before. He’s president of a mostly-incumbent council, so the presumption is that he is part of the machine.

Rosa’s Liquor License a Bell-weather
The main event at the City Council meeting was not the City Council at all, but the Liquor Board, which is, in fact, the City Council. Parliamentary procedure is an obtuse practice. A curse upon you, Roberts, and your wretched Rules of Order!

The controversy that had brought almost as many people to council chambers as the famous eminent domain affair was the issuance of a beer-and-wine license to longstanding Cape Verdean family restaurant Rosa’s at 757 Main St. This license touches a fault line in Pawtucket, and I predict that this issue’s resolution – whichever way it goes – will be a political issue in 2010 in Barros’ Ward 5 where Rosa’s is located.
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For me, it is also a bellwether for the city’s transformation from past to future.

As was reported elsewhere, numerous citizens testified on both sides. As was NOT reported elsewhere, there was a sharp and immediately noticeable difference between the two sides.

And that difference was the color of their skin. Proponents were Cape Verdean, hence darker complected than the opponents who were uniformly of European ancestry and lighter complected.

IMPORTANT: I did not just say, nor will I say later on, that ANYBODY involved in this is a racist. I AM SAYING that proponents and opponents were sharply divided along cultural lines. It is a FACT, and it needs to be said and dealt with.

Okay, let’s move on.

Rosa’s has been a family restaurant for five years. Their reputation is very good. I’ve personally heard great things about them. Even their opponents couldn’t mention anything of significance as prior evidence to indicate future trouble. In fact, in opposition to the license, they say Rosa’s is thriving and vital, and does not need this license to stay competitive.

Rosa’s wants a limited liquor license to complement an extensive menu. They serve 3 meals a day, 7(?) days a week with buffets on the holidays. They are not asking to expand their hours, they are not asking to expand seating. They just want to offer their customers beer and wine.

But the Woodlawn Neighborhood Association (WNA) opposes the license, and opposes it strongly.

The opposition centers around fears of future problems that a liquor license might bring. The WNA, along with other factors, has done a lot to clean up the streets and normalize the neighborhood which, at one time, needed a lot of that.

WNA fears that a liquor license at 757 Main St will create a bar-type cluster that communicates with other licensed spots in the Main St/MinSpringAve triangle area. That seedy area – that I typically refer to as junkie bum park – is nobody’s vision of the future.

They also expressed concern that problems similar to those associated with The Blackstone, a full-on frat-boy type club now verboten as a topic on this blog, will come to Rosa’s.

Finally, they expressed concern that young people who eat at Rosa’s may or may not be gang members or that they may or may not have confrontations with other young people that are gang members.

But the Woodlawn Neighborhood Association is wrong on all counts.

Why the Neighborhood Association is Wrong
As a visual aid for the following, I’ve prepared this Google map that shows the location of various places involved in this story. This link will open in a separate tab or window, so use it for reference.

Let’s examine their arguments in order.

First, the concern about a cluster effect with the junkie bum bars (JBBs) is entirely misplaced. As reference, the map shows the East Ave restaurant cluster discussed earlier on this blog. Rosa’s and the JBBs are roughly the same distance as the farthest parts of the East Ave cluster. Without the interceding restaurants, this wouldn’t be a cluster. Just on the issue of distance, these establishments would not be able to cluster.

Were Rosa’s on the north side of I-95, it might be able to cluster with the JBBs, but the highway acts as a natural divider. In addition, the JBBs clientele wants nothing to do with normal, family-type people; they fear and flee from normalcy, as discussed in this essay and comments.

Given the physical distance and the extreme demographic/lifestyle mismatch, I think there’s virtually zero chance that junkie bums will go to Rosa’s to get drunk. Or that Rosa’s would let them in the door.

Next, the concerns about Blackstone-style problems are equally mismatched. Drunken suburbanite young men are as likely to get fighting-drunk at Rosa’s as the JBB crowd. (Problems with drunken suburbanite douchebags getting all fighty at the Blackstone?!? Maybe it can be a topic again. Feed me information.)

And it’s not very likely that the Rosa’s crowd is gonna get fighting drunk, either. Longtime reader know that your humble correspondent lives right next to Cantinho. Cantinho targets the same market segment as Rosa’s, and Cantinho has a full liquor license, staying open until 1 am on the weekends. The Cantinho crowd at 1 am is not like the Blackstone crowd at 1 am. They say goodnight, get in their cars and go home.

I’m not saying I don’t have my issues with Cantinho, but the crowd is never rowdy or violent. I have seen, literally, none of that in the 4 years Cantinho has been my neighbor.

Now for that vague fear of gang violence. The neighborhood association talks about problems with teenager that are in gangs. They see teenagers hanging around outside Rosa’s before or after eating. They worry that these eating teenagers are gang teenagers. Or the eating teenagers will get in a beef with gang teenagers.

They might as well ban teenagers.

Like junkie bums, low-level gangs fear and flee from normalcy. Neighborhood instability sets the stage on which the neighborhood gang becomes a necessity. A stable, healthy neighborhood largely precludes gang behavior, as WNA has been good enough to prove by contributing to he neighborhood’s overall normalization.

What Nobody Mentioned
I’d like to make two points here of my own that did not come up at the City Council/Liquor Board hearing.

First, I’d like to suggest that the existence of Rosa’s as a vital community asset might have had a strongly positive effect on the elimination of crime in Woodlawn. As stated – over and over again – the criminal element thrives where normalcy withers. Rosa’s – by all accounts, even the neighborhood association’s – is a force for good and normalcy. Could it have sat at this critical, strategic location for five years – during which crime diminished so much – and NOT have had a positive effect?

I think not, and it’s a glaring hole in WNA’s reasoning. Can’t they recongize friends when they see them?

Also, the repeated claim that Rosa’s is doing just fine as a business went unchallenged. But, please, allow me…

I have not yet written either my restaurant review or my economic development analysis of the upscale, super-yummy, and often truly hot hot-spot Rosinha’s. Rosinha’s – which has a full liquor license – targets the same market segment as Rosa’s. Rosinha’s is even farther from Rosa’s than the JBBs, so Rosa’s can’t enjoy the benefits of clustering. But Rosinha’s is close enough to be a new option for diners.

I virtually guarantee that Rosa’s is losing dinner business to Rosinha’s, and the availability of beer and wine is likely a deciding factor for the loyal Rosa’s customer (although they’d never admit it).

It’s an entirely logical analysis to say that Rosa’s needs this upgrade to stay competitive with Rosinha’s.

So let me ask the Woodlawn Neighborhood Association which they’d prefer:

Rosa’s with a limited liquor license
757 Main Street boarded up
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