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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1979-08-06 CC MIN.(342 COUNCIL CHAMBERS Stillwater, Minnesota Absent: None August 6, 1979 2:00 P. M. SPECIAL MEETING The meeting was called to order by Mayor Junker Present: Councilwoman Bodlovick, Councilmen H. Peterson, R. Peterson, Powell and Mayor Junker Also Present: Finance Director /Coordinator, Kriesel; City Attorney, Magnuson; City Clerk, Schnell; Public Safety Director, Abrahamson Press: WAVN - Gary Larson Stillwater Gazette - Bob Liberty, Sharon Baker, Kevin Regan St. Paul Dispatch - Linda Owen Citizens: Lamont Brine, Monty Brine, David Eckberg, Charles Aldine, Arthur Sievert, David Colombo, Michael Hamp, Richard Anderson, Larry Dauffenbach, Gordon Seim, Dick Jeans, Terry O'Brien, David Eckberg MAYOR JUNKER announced that this meeting was called to discuss the situation that occurred during Lumberjack Days over the weekend and that if there were any parties or individuals that would like to express their opinions, he asked them to stand up and state their name and dress. WILLIAM FRANKLIN HENRY, Scandia Township (Member of the Minnesota State Patrol) - with the assistance of the Stillwater Police, his partner and himself were in Stillwater to take 300 to 500 individuals out of the street on Minnesota Highway #95 - he felt that the situation had gotten out of hand and they were unable with the mere 15 or so police officers - 3 or 4 Stillwater Police - four state troopers ant to balance from the Washington County Sheriff's Department were unable to maintain the situation. They had requested the assistance of the Fire Department to hose down the crowd and clear the street and they were unable to get that assistance at that time. He felt that they were not supported by other departments - he has been a State Tropper for nine years and has been in the Washington County area for over three years and he has been involved in the Lumberjack Days celebrations three tins and they have always been very bad situations. MAYOR JUNKER asked if he felt that with the number of people that were here that we would have that many problems and HE reponded that it depends upon the amount of alcohol. CHARLES ALDINE, RRkdale, who has been a police officer for about five years and he responded at of the Stillwater Police Department - when he arrived he would say there were about 500 people and the vast majority were in an advanced stage of intoxication and they had Trunk Highway No. 95 blocked and for a few minutes it was a very potentially dangerous situation and that they were lucky that no one was hurt on either side - and felt that they could have used the out- side assistance of the Fire Department. ARTHUR G. SIEVERT, resident of Stillwater and member of the Stillwater Police Department - he came on duty at 9 o'clock Saturday night and when he first got into the downtown area on a routine check with the squad car, it was obvious at that time that they were going to have problems later on - the crowd was between Main Street and the park area - he felt that there were in excess of 5,000 people and most of them were decent people who were down there to have a good time and also some that were getting drunk - there was beer on every corner on every street - people were walking with beer cans, six packs. He did not feel that the ordinances had been suspended and he did not feel that the City had sufficient officers on duty for that number of people - there were four fights between ten o'clock and midnite that he either witnessed or was informed of later and in every case they had trouble getting to the scene of the fights. They did ask the State Patrol to stand by and neighboring communities to be available for any additional help that they might need - Main Street was blocked with about 500 people - it was impassable and cars trying to get thru were harrassed by people kicking the cars, beer being poured on them - the situation was out of the control of the Stillwater Police Officers. DAVID COLOMBO, Stillwater Fire Department, he happened to be downtown when things were going on down there - when the bars let out and people were leaving from the park and when the Boom Co. let out there were a few fights down there and the motor cyclist.; started going up and down the street - people were just standing by to watch and when the Police Department tried to stop the motor cyclists it got out of control - he went up to the Fire Station and he told Gordy that he felt that they would be insance to go down there and spray down a crowd of innocent people - there was no riot down there. A a I /el gl • • • • Py a • 0 r v August 6, 1979 MICHAEL HAMP, 222 West Cherry Street - he happened to be down there, too - the overall attitude of the crowd was not of violence - there was a lot of drinking going on and that is what Lumberjack Days is all about - he felt that if the Police Department would have had the men there when the bars got out, the crowd would not have gathered in the first place - felt that if the crowd would have been told to go home, but it is how you tell people what to do - he felt that they should have jumped on the guys that were causing the trouble and give them a ticket - it was out of hand too long. RICHARD ANDERSON, Stillwater Police Officer, felt that the majority of the people were not local since the St. Croix Boom Co. had an extremely good band that evening and they could not handle all these people - he started work at 4:00 P. M. and from 6 o'clock on there were approximately 150 to 200 people in front of the Boom Co. and about 300 to 400 people behind Reeds and the Boom Co. and not in the park - good many were from outside the City and there were numerous fights - they were breaking beer glasses on the pavement and the crowd was already drunk or on their way to being drunk - there were a few motor cycles tearing up and down the street - 30 to 40 motor cycles outside the Boom Co. from 6 P. M. on. As far as issuing a couple of tickets that would have done no good - they asked the people to leave - the Boom Co. called them about 1:05 A. M. after they closed and there were more people in the streets which added to the problem - they spent about a half hour asking the people to leave making no arrests - about 1:30 P. M. a few people were driving very recklessly and the Highway Patrol made an arrest on one of the side streets and then the crowd converged on him and at that time the crowd became more violent and they had to use excess force at that time to get the people to move. LARRY DAUFFENBACH, Stillwater Police Department - he was the senior officer on duty for the City of Stillwater that evening - he was the one that made the decision to call for assistance from the outside communities that did give them assistance - Oak Park Heights, Highway Patrol and the Washington County Sheriff's Department - he came to work at 10 o'clock that evening - when he first went thru downtown at 10:30 they had a hit -run accident that was near the Oasis restaurant - cars were parked on both sides of Highway 95 - no parking in Still- water - all lots were full - alcohol was flowing very freely on every street and there was no way they could enforce any of the ordinances - some of the local establishments were serving beer on the sidewalks - this made it very difficult to enforce any of the ordinances regarding drinking on the streets - he had six officers on duty at the time - three full time patrolmen - two reserve patrolmen and one extra reserve officer. At 11:00 P. M. after one fight in the park he went back to the office and he called the Chief of Police and he told him to keep the help over - he authorized any overtime and to call in outside assistance if necessary - there was a large number of people in front of the Boom Co. - the people had moved out of the park into the downtown area either to leave or to go to their cars - he would say there were somewhere from 3,000 to 4,000 people in the downtown area - they had probably about 500 people in front of the Boom Company about one o'clock - overall the crowd was good - due to the man- power problem they had no way of moving these people - when they start driving recklessly and blocking Main Street and harrassing the people who were trying to get home and at that time he called for assistance - five state patrolmen came, four Washington County Deputies and Oak Park Heights and Bayport responded. At this time they started going through the crowd and asked the people to disperse - no arrests were made, no one was pushed around, no one was shoved - some did respond to it - at one time there was one very reckless drive on Main Street - he was stopped by the State Patrolman and arrested - approximately 150 to 200 people approached this car in an attempt to hurt the officer or take the prisoner away from this officer. They sealed off the particular area where the arrest was being made and then contacted the Chief of Police who was called in at this time. Shortly after that they needed some extra help and manpower and he made the decision to call for the Stillwater Fire Department to come down and standby with their pumper and need, they would use that to hose the crowd down. There was some discussion whether they should use tear gas and he did not feel that would be necessary - there was no property damage occurring at the time - they were throwing beer bottls at the officers - there was beer thrown at the officers - officers were verbally harrassed and the people driving up and down Main Street. When the Police Chief came he informed them that the Fire Department was not coming and they would have to handle the situation and he was going back to the Police Department to call out some other men to come on duty. They made 12 arrests in the Downtown area and within 15 or 20 minutes the crowds left. COUNCILMAN R. PETERSON asked Larry if his request of the Fire Department to stand- by with the pumper or to come down and hose down the crowd and OFFICER DAUFFENBACH stated that what he wanted them to do - if necessary he would use them to come down to hose down the crowd - what he wanted was for them to come down into the Downtown area with the fire rig and need be they could use it - they wanted them to come into the Downtown area on Main Street and get on the loud speaker re- questing the people to move - he felt that the mere presence of the truck would have been a psychological value of their presence he felt would have helped. 343 ° a • • • 1 (344 August 6, 1979 MAYOR JUNKER asked if they had any thoughts of using mace and he stated that they did consider that at one time. MICHAEL RAMP asked why they had called the Fire Department rather than some of their regular police officers and CHIEF ABRAHAMSON stated that the reason that they called for the Fire Department as he understood it was that a Highway Patrol Officer's life might be in jeopardy and they needed a truck to water down the crowd - he proceeded to the downtown area, the radio network is all taped - it was very busy and active - he could see the situation and called for more manpower and he also went to the Fire Department. MR. DUAFFENBACH stated that no officer was seriously injured - there was no real property damage to the downtown area to the merchants or city property - he did not know if there was any vandalism to the vehicles - the end result worked out okay - he felt at the time he made the proper decision in what he was trained to do. COUNCILWOMAN BODLOVICK asked Mr. Duaffenbach if he felt the crow& was mostly local and he responded that there were a lot of local people there, but there were also a lot of out -of -town people - out of the 12 arrests that were made there were two or three local people and the rest were from North St. Paul, White Bear Lake, Rochester. GORDON SEIM, Stillwater Fire Department, Assistant Chief, at the time he got the call from the Sheriff's office the words were "that they wanted them to hose the crowd down". Nobody in the Fire Department is trained here to hose down a crowd - they have to stop dead and get out of the truck and they have a limited supply - the biggest pumper carries 700 gallons - they would run out of water within a few minutes and felt that it would make the situation even worse. The situation dispersed not many minutes after this happened - he could not order his men down there without being trained in a situation like that - there are no cowards - everyone of them have crawled through houses full of smoke. The other thing that they did do they did stand -by for the event if there was a riot that they were going to burn down the town - that is that they are here to put out the fire. DAVID COLOMBO stated that if they had gone down there and sprayed a lot of innocent people there would have been a lot of lawsuits against the City of Stillwater. COUNCILMAN POWELL asked if any of the volunteers were asked to go down there - the response was that they were asked but none of them went. COUNCILMAN ROGER PETERSON asked Mr. Perkenberg if he felt that the presense of a pumper downtown whether it did any spraying or not would have helped to control the crowd in any way and he and the other officers all felt that it would have. MAYOR JUNKER felt that the City would have to look at some tighter rules and some stricter regulations for Lumberjack Days for next year - some asked that the crowd be cut down and he felt that it is impossible - look into the beer selling and other regulations. There will be a meeting with the Lumberjack Committee, Downtown merchants, the Chamber of Commerce and it will be held at a Council meeting and open to the public. OFFICER SIEVERT felt that we had adequate ordinances, but what they did not have the amount of people needed to enforce the ordinances. MAYOR JUNKER Indicated that he had talked to the Sheriff's Department and they guaranteed the City manpower that would be needed next year which would be needed at certain times. COUNCILMAN POWELL felt that one way to reduce the crowd would be not to sell any liquor outside of the local establishments - the selling on the street is what gets it starred and if that is not done there will be a better behaved crowd and a smaller crowd. MR. RAMP felt that we should not be just concerned with the big crowds at night and the drinking and there would be a concern about the crowds during the day also and traffic. MONTY BRINE commented on the sale of beer in the downtown area and he felt that the greatest number came from the sale of the beer in the park and not from the regular beer establishments. Comments were made about the jars that they sold with beer that were being broken - they were sold to be collected and they ran out on Friday and they checked the broken glass in the park area - it was dispos- able beer bottles that were brought into the area. They would be happy to take their beer -stand off the street and they only sold three kegs of beer in the three days. They sold 1,200 of the jars and the mugs. i - I R7 %./ 0 0 • 0 • 1 1 s • • August 6, 1979 345 COUNCILMAN ROGER PETERSON felt that the problems steamed from the amount of beer that was being consumed down there. He disagreed with Mr. Hemp - he was down there from about 9:30 to midnite and you could almost feel it in the air as to where the people were almost unruly at that time - eliminate the beer in the park and the on- street beer and he felt that this would eliminate a lot of the problems - and then enforce the ordinances against drinking beer on the streets. MONTY BRINE asked the Council to consider the beer garden permits in the park as this is the main fund raising for the Jaycees - the area should be fenced off and the clinking should be confined to that area. MAYOR JUNKER agreed that the Beer Garden is a part of Lumberjack Days - if there is no beer garden then they will be in the bars and he questioned they would be able to take care of the crowds. KEVIN CHARLSEN, member of the Stillwater Volunteer Fire Department, confirmed the fact that none of the department has had any riot training whatsover - they have no idea how bad a hose stream could hurt somebody - they are always very cautious when they have their water fights that they don't direct it at some- body - there is a lot of force there and it could really hurt somebody. There are 30 of them that are ready to fight any fire - they are not policemen - they are not trained in police work - to run into a riot situation that they have not been into is a different story - he questioned why the patrol officer cars were parked in the City Hall parking lot and he was informed that they were afraid of having them damaged if they were parked downtown. He felt that things went a little overboard - he didn't feel that they should use a $40,000 /M fire truck to block a street - if people are blocked in, they will panic worse. 1 1 CHIEF ABRAHAMSON stated that the polio cars were poked in the First National Bank parking lot and all of the officers walked downtown to get to the trouble - when he called for a fire truck, he wanted to block Olive Street at Main Street with the fire truck and the reason for this was that just prior to that Officer Dauffenbach almost was killed when a car going by him, estimated going at about 60 miles per hour, he hit the car with the club, the car just missed his that b the City LTD there felt street - just leave the truck there - no firemen - rather than his personal car and if the Council and the Mayor wants to fire him for doing it - they can do it. Mr. Abrahamson stated that they would have arrested all of the people walking the streets carrying beer, but the jail could not take care of them and they the beer drinking come the bars or certain was hopeful that certain areas MR. DAUFFENBACH stated that if you impose more restrictions, they are still going to have to enforce - he personally feels that Lumberjack Days is good - it is great for the merchants and if they are going to have these festivities in town, he felt that the City of Stillwater and the Council has a certain responsibility to protect, nor only the people in the downtown area, but the merchants - you have the police manpower there to enforce it - if they would have had the officers available all day long and all weekend long and the overtime would have been there and the people would have been required to work, maybe the problem could have been curbed before it started - don't have enough people to do it. DICK JEANS, Reed Drug Store, felt it is a civic festival - that is what it is meant to be - and that some dignity has to be put back into it - have to get the alcdiolic beverages off the street - in the park if they can be contained there only - he was worried about the publicity that the City was receiving on this and that we could have another problem next Saturday night - on the Fourth of July there was beer in the park and there were about 4,000 to 5,000 people down there - they were all local people and there were no problems;with this particular weekend it was not all local people. He felt that we could cleanup Lumberjack Days for next year, but if not, it will be scratched - enforce the on- street drinking and this is a festival for our people and not for outside people - the problem here was too many outside people. OFFICER ALDINE felt that they were talking about almost two different groups of people - at the time that they were out on the street after one o'clock - there was no families - there were no children under the age of 15 - there were no elderly people walking around - there were kids between the ages of 16 and 25 or 30 and they were all intoxicated and the majority were looking for trouble - he did not feel that is the group of people that Lumberjack Days is setup for. COUNCILMAN ROGER PETERSON felt that our problems are generated on the south end of town around the Boom Co. - they have had problems with the Boom Co. before - at the time of the change of ownership about a year or two ago, the new owners were in and they indicated that they were going to take care of their own - take care of the policing in the bar and they would make sure that there were no recurrence of the problems. It just doesn't seem to him that this has happened - they may take care of the problems in the bar, but they overflow into the streets and that is where (heytareeh)having the problems. re • • • • • • • • X 346 August 6, 1979 Have had several problems down there in the past without regard to any type of civic celebration - felt that the City should get in contact with the owners of the St. Croix Boom Co. and inform them that we are going to look awfully hard at their license because wer have had nothing but problems at that place. TERRY O'BRIEN, ST. CROIX BOOM CO. - that because they are drawing a larger crowd than some of the other places they are used as a point of reference They control the liquor that comes in and goes out of their establishment - they have a Stillwater Reserve Police Officer who watches their doors on busy nights. There has been some concern about litter - they hire, a person who goes out and picks up the litter in the whole block - they work closely with the Stillwater Police Department - they have been more than happy to cooperate in any manner with them - they have tried to work with the community - whey have done anything that has been asked of them in the civic community - they have tried to be good citizens. Several months ago there were some windows broken in town - one was done by one of their customers and one was by a person was near our place, but not one of his customers. In both cases he net personally with the owners and apologized for the problems - they paid for one of the windows and one of the people who broke the window paid for it themselves. He wanted it on record that . they do not feel that this particular event was a result of their particular "pub" - it was coincidental that at the time their crowd was leaving that there was a large gatheritgfront of the Boom Co. and that whole general area. According to their manager there were fights breaking out in the park as early as nine o'clock - the Stillwater Police Department was called at 12:35 A. M. informing them that there was a gathering outside and they closed their doors at midnite because they could not put any more people into their club and were concerned that they were going to have a problem when their people would be leaving. He has been Wm concerned about the Stillwater Lumberjack Days for two years - he is concerned for several reasons - whenarer you have beer in the streets you cannot control BI consumption - there is no way that people who sell beer here are used to handling the crowds - they do not and annot control minors - it is very easy for a person to go up and buy three or four beers and take them back and give them to his friends. This is going on all day - their situation does not start until eight o'clock at night and by the time that people have been going on for several hours, you can imagine what is going to happen. The third concern is the fact that he does not believe that the City or those who distribute the beer have liquor liability insurance - they do and it is very expensive - if someone has a problem and has an accident, it is going to be the Boom Company that they will come against even though they never walked through the door. All of the other communities that have these types of gatherings and have liquor have problems - he strongly recommended that they eliminate the beer sales or control them in such a manner that you can control the people properly - check with the police department or some of the reserve officers that have worked their establishment and you will find that they have worked hard from keeping any bottles coming in and any bottles from going out - they purposely do not sell beer on the street or serve it on the sidewalk because they feel strongly about this and did not want to contribute to the problem. There have been a lot of beer cans and a lot of returnable bottles - they do not have beer cans except one imported beer and they do not have returnable bottles. Their security staff was almost double for this particular weekend because of their con- cern about potential problems and now that the potential has come to light everybody is using the Boom Company as a point of reference. He stated that they oould check with the Chamber of Commerce and some of the business men and you can see that a ,, they have tried to be consistent and because they are the point of reference for the general community, a lot of bad things have been directed toward the Boom Company when in fact it was really not their problem - they try to keep the pro- blems down and he would be more than happy to sit down with any of the people and discuss with them their control procedures as to how they maintain crowds and their cooperation with the City, or anything else that they would like to discuss. COUNCILMAN POWELL asked Mr..O'Brien if he knew that about 50% of the emergency cases orginate from the Boom Company on Friday and Saturday nights to the hospital and the responded that he had no way of knowing that. COUNCILMAN POWELL also stated that the City Attorney has told them that the majority of the cases that he prosecutes originate at the Boom Company. MR. O'BRIEN stated that part of that is because they have made an effort to let people know that they will prosecute or press charges if they cause trouble - part of this is just between the Police Department and their establishment - if the Police Department prefers, they don't do this, they don't and that has pretty much las been their policy. The only way they can control some of these people and it is a small number of people, they can have 500 to 600 people and all it takes is a coille to cause a problem. COUNCILMAN POWELL stated that most of the other bars in town generate their business from local people - the customers that the Boom Co. have generally come in from out -of town and a large majority of them de ride motor cycles - it seems that one liquor establishment having the majority of the presecutions and the majority of the emergencies causes one to give a second thought to it - he would make the motion, and he may do that, that they inform the Boom Company that come January first they may not have a renewal of their license - give them a little opportunity e a • • 1 • August 6, 1979 r to look for another location in another community - that is his feeling and he feels very strongly about it - he even got one lttter and felt that it was a very deplorable situation. MAYOR JUNKER stated that when you have 500 people - they hold more people than all the other bars in town at one time - Saturday - Sunday or anytime and if they have 50% of the emergencies that would be correct - there are ten times more people in the Boom Company on Friday or Saturday nite than there is in the whole City of Stillwater. DAVID ECKBERG, Chamber of Commerce, thanked everyone who calmed down things on Saturday nite and Sunday morning - they are willing to do whatever it takes to put Lumberjack Days back into proper prospective for 1980, whether that includes no beer or very limited beer - that is fine. Lumberjack Days to most people in Stillwater is not unlimited drinking in the Downtown area. Lumberjack Days is a very nice parade - firemen's water fight or something like this- they would be very interested in meeting within the next thirty days with the law enforcement friends here and making this thing very viable and safe and controlled next year. BILL HAHN, 209 South Main Street, suggested to the Council to perhaps help clear the air that they could make a statement that Lumberjack Days as such as it was this year has been cancelled - that until such a time as this can be restructured and reprogrammed it will not happen again as it did this year. He did not feel that any of the merchants Downtown would repeat a per- formance or give their money or time to put on a thing as happened last Saturday. They would back it. In order to square themselves with the public, with the media and everybody, he felt it would help to say it has been cancelled in its present form and when it is restructured, they will take another look at it. OFFICER SIEVERT - stated that he would hesitate a long time before cancelling Lumberjack Days - it is the civic celebration in Stillwater and it has a place - it needs a little "pruning" here and there - bolstering up in other places but he did think it has a place in the Stillwater action. COUNCILMAN ROGER PETERSON felt that they should sit down with the Chamber of Commerce and did not feel that the City should cancel Lumberjack Days - it is definitely an excellent celebration - he would like to see more activities around the Lumberjack activities as such - should have more controls - personally felt that we should do away with all beer and liquor sold on the streets - in the park - anywhere. He did not feel t' - t it can be contained in an area, but he felt that this be worked out with the Chamber of Commerce and he would like to see Mr. Kriesel and Mr. Magnuson get together and set up a meeting with the Chamber and the Lumberjack Days Committee so that they can go over this and eliminate some of these problems for next year. On motion of Councilman Roger Peterson, seconded by Councilman Powell, the meeting adjourned at 3:05 P. M. Attest: - City r �.e.G�.,tL( ■ City Clerk Mayor 347 'i • • • • r