Out of the bars, into the streets

There's a woman passed out on the sidewalk, a guy's revving a chopper loud enough to wake the dead and some knucklehead is running alongside a cruiser and bragging to his buddies that he's "faster than a police car."

Then a call comes in from dispatch, like clockwork, at 2 a.m. — somebody's reporting loud noises in the French Quarter.

It's closing time in Charleston.

There have been a lot of changes in the city's night life since 2003. Bars that used to close — or rather, stay open — at their leisure are now required to lock their doors at 2 a.m., dumping as many as a couple of thousand people onto city streets at once. The smoking ban keeps a steady crowd on the sidewalks throughout the evening and Police Chief Greg Mullen has put a lid on open containers.

Despite all these changes, police keep Charleston remarkably calm. Officers manage sizeable crowds politely, professionally and with an ample show of force when zero hour falls. They casually check out a good many people before they get in cars and drive, and point the rest to taxis. They aren't storm troopers, but they aren't pushovers, either. They tolerate the goofballs, but gently push people to keep the noise down, keep the sidewalks clear, the fun clean.

Police officers say they aren't especially looking to write tickets or lock up everyone who's had a drink ("The jail's not big enough," one jokes), but they are not about to let the Holy City turn into one big long Bourbon Street.

"We have pretty much a zero tolerance policy for public drunkenness," Sgt. Dale Wilson says. "We're not going to have people who can't walk out in the street."

The city started the 2 a.m. closing in January 2003, claiming it would cut down on noise and rowdy behavior in this Southern city of manners. Bar owners groused, bar patrons griped, but five years after the fact, most say it's no big deal.

Police get the credit for changing the city's lifestyle. DUI checkpoints cut down on the number of folks trying to drive off the peninsula after a bout of drinking, and undercover officers have busted a guy who was robbing drunk kids as they staggered home. A bit of community policing has made allies of most bar owners.

That's obvious when Wilson, a Team 2 supervisor, walks East Bay, calling doormen by name, stopping to ask if they've had any problems.

"It hasn't hurt them, but it's improved the city," says Wilson, who's been patrolling Charleston for 16 years. He says bar owners are now largely cooperative, putting up lines to keep the crowds corralled and sidewalks passable.

"Now when they get a fake I.D., they give us a call," he says. "That never used to happen."

Lately, the biggest problems have come in the neighborhood just beyond the bar. Ironically, they are the very problems that the city wanted to curb with the 2 a.m. shut-down.

Off upper King Street, people sometimes hang out in parking lots after closing time, partying, chatting, leaving a mess. Residents of the French Quarter have complained that vandalism and noise problems have plagued the historic downtown neighborhood.

The police have sent in parking enforcement officers and beefed up patrols in the Quarter, and it's apparently working: locals say the problem has dropped off noticeably; police have written hundreds of tickets for illegally parked cars.

Still, somebody has heard enough on this night to complain.

A half-hour before last call on the Market Friday, Wilson sent two officers on bicycles into the Quarter to head off any problems before they started. When dispatch called with the loud-noise complaint, Wilson decided to check it out himself and it takes him about a minute to find one of his guys at the corner of State and Cumberland.

The bicycle cop sees Wilson pull up, shakes his head and says "Nothing."

Wilson notes that it happens all the time: police get a call about loud noise, but when they get there, the people have moved on. Mostly it's just people talking too loud, their voices bouncing off three-story homes and echoing down the street. When officers do find them, they ask them to keep it down —folks are trying to sleep. There's nothing else to do.

"It's not against the law to talk," Wilson says.

Ralph Ledford, a French Quarter resident and member of the neighborhood association, concedes as much, and brags that police have completely changed the place of late.

"We're going to have some noise," he says. "It doesn't take but a small percentage to cause problems. So many people coming through making noise and doing their dirty deeds is what makes the residents upset."

A mile north, Rev. Joseph Darby, pastor at Morris Brown AME Church, says he still gets broken bottles, condoms and the occasional needle in the parking lot of his church just off King Street. But he says Chief Mullen is running things well.

"It's not as bad as it was. We don't have as much parking and debris piling up," Darby says. "This is the effect of progress on King Street. It's a changing place, a neighborhood in transition, going through gentrification."

Lt. Charles Mitchell, the commander of Team 2 — which covers downtown Charleston from Cannon Street south — says his officers have fallen into a good rhythm of keeping the peace. Police must juggle the business of keeping people safe from those who have been drinking, and keep those who imbibe from becoming victims. The bars, he says, play a large part in this new strategy.

"The bars have a responsibility to stop serving intoxicated people," Mitchell says.

But there is little remedy for Mitchell's biggest concern: a concentration of bars on Market and East Bay Streets that puts so many people in one area at once. That's what has led the police to their nightly standard.

About 1:30 a.m., officers shut down Market Street to cut down on traffic when people come out of the bars — the sidewalks would never hold them all. With the crowd spread out, police can keep a better eye on what's going on.

By 1:45, bars either give last call or, as is the case with many, just start shutting down. Wilson notes that at 2 a.m., several places already have their doors locked. Officers chat with many folk, keeping watch on those who have had too much to drink. A surprising number argue that they are fine, but few test it when police warn them not to get behind the wheel.

The guy running along the police car talks a bit too long. When Wilson asks if he realizes how stupid he looked, the guy notes once again that he outran the police car. Wilson suggests he run down to the corner and catch a cab.

"I'm not smiling anymore," he says.

Of course, not everyone is crazy about the earlier closing time, say that it's more trouble than it's worth. Some folks on the street say it hasn't made much difference. When the bars closed at 3 a.m., the drinkers were just hanging out in the parking lots even later.

"It's very orderly," says Kevin Ash, a doorman/bouncer at the Purple Tree Lounge on Market Street. "I don't think they anticipated all this. There are too many bars to have everyone coming out at once. But for the most part, everyone's been cool."

Nobody can complain they aren't allowed to have fun, though. The Market scene is like a concert letting out, folks in various states of fatigue and sobriety spilling into the streets and heading home, or somewhere else anyway.

By 2:20 a.m. Saturday morning, the Market is mostly clear, King Street is quiet. Wilson cruises the French Quarter then drops by the Morris Brown parking lot, finds a few cars, the remains of a small party and a guy trying to get in his car. Wilson tells him to walk to his friend's house, get the car in the morning. The guy says he's had nothing to drink — well, five drinks.

By 3 a.m., the last of the revelers have passed through or passed out. A young man dressed in khakis, a pink button-down shirt and dress shoes, is lying on the sidewalk at the corner of State and Chalmers, snoring. His wallet and phone are lying on his chest, a free gift for any passing robber.

Two nights owls spot him and call 911. Within two minutes, one of the Team 2 guys is on the scene. When it becomes clear pink shirt can't answer a few simple questions — like, what he's doing there — Officer Joseph Dela Rosa cuffs him, puts him in the car.

And the streets of the French Quarter are, once again, empty.

Reach Brian Hicks at bhicks@postandcourier.com or 937-5561.