Tourist arrest was right call

I would like to address a number of questions that have been raised regarding the recent arrest of a tourist for violating the city's open container law.

1) Why does the city have such a law?

Our law, which is commonplace in cities in America, was the result many years ago of our responding to neighborhood requests to have our neighborhoods regain control of their sidewalks. People drinking alcoholic beverages out on the sidewalk essentially take over the space and reduce the peace, quietude and order of the neighborhood. This law is found in most large cities like New York and San Francisco and small cities like Summerville.

2) Why is the city's ordinance stringently enforced?

Because the residents of our neighborhoods have requested it, or more accurately stated, reasonably demanded it. Charleston, unlike most American cities, has residential neighborhoods that are interwoven with the commercial streets and neighborhoods of our city. Many American cities have a no-man zone near their commercial areas filled with large vacant parking lots or abandoned buildings, and so activities in commercial areas like drinking on the streets and sidewalks usually have very little impact on neighborhoods. Thankfully, Charleston is very different.

For generations, our citizens have worked hard to preserve and continue to restore the residential neighborhoods, not only keeping the residential presence, but with infill residential development, often one historic house at a time, reknitting the fabric of our city and healing the ragged zones between our more commercial streets and residential neighborhoods.

Families have stayed in their residential neighborhoods and new families and residents are moving back to enjoy the livability of our urban neighborhoods and the wonderful qualities they present. If the city tolerates drinking on the street in front of a vacant parking lot, there is less of an impact than if it is in a residential neighborhood.

Sleeping interrupted because of boisterous and intoxicated consumers of alcohol right under someone's bedroom window diminishes the livability of a neighborhood. Empty beer and alcohol bottles, the odors of spilled alcohol and worse remove positive qualities of life in these residential neighborhoods.

Our police department has been working very hard with our residents to reduce this problem and to keep our residential neighborhoods desirable places for people to live, including families with children. To make this happen, the open container law cannot be winked at by asking the law violator to pour their alcohol out on the street, which, of course, would be in front of someone's home.

3) Is there a larger law enforcement issue involved here?

The answer is yes. It is best described by the broken window theory, which has been emerging in our country for the last 30 years. It is that in neighborhoods where people see graffiti, abandoned cars, broken windows, lots of litter, strewn beer bottles, people drinking in public or other signs of lack of order, there is a subliminal message that rules are not enforced there and therefore more serious disregard of the law occurs. By seeking to establish normal rules of order and livability, neighborhoods thereby become safer. That has been the case in these neighborhoods in our city. Serious crime has dropped dramatically.

4) Why was the tourist arrested?

A very fine police officer treated the visitor as they have treated college students, transients, vagrants or law-violating neighborhood residents. Citizens watch the actions of police officers. A citizen whose friend may have recently been arrested for walking down the street drinking a beer camouflaged by a brown paper bag would reasonably be incensed to see someone doing the same thing treated differently. Uneven enforcement of the law is not only wrong, but damages public confidence in law enforcement. Our police officer had no reason to treat the tourist differently than dozens of other people have been treated for the same offense.

5) Why were four police cars needed?

Four police cars were not required. The four police cars each had different and varying roles in this matter. One car obviously contained the officer who made the arrest. Anytime anyone is arrested in the city, a backup police officer who is in the vicinity comes to see if any assistance is necessary. The arresting officer informed the backup police officer when he arrived that everything was under control.

Later, as is normal, the supervisor in the area likewise came by to check in with the police officer and that was done quickly. The last car was necessary to inform the spouse that her husband had been arrested and take her to her lodging. When she realized she didn't have the key to her room, the police officer in that car then went to the county jail to get the key and take it back to the tourist's wife.

6) Why was the tourist kept in jail for nine hours?

The city police officers did not keep the tourist in jail for nine hours. When someone is arrested, the city police officer takes that person to the county jail. The nine-hour stay at the county jail was the result of whatever was going on at the county jail at that time that caused this amount of delay. The city was not holding or punishing this person by inordinate delay. The city police officer had no control over that.

7) Will the arrest of the tourist harm tourism?

Absolutely not. Tourists do not come to Charleston so they can go to a corner store, buy a beer, put it in a brown paper bag and walk our streets. That may be the reason that tourists go to some other cities and, in a few, they do not need to camouflage the beer in a brown paper bag.

Tourists come to Charleston for a host of reasons, including the fact that the city is historic, beautiful, safe, clean and because it has something rare in America: healthy residential neighborhoods, many historic, which address and abut the commercial streets. It is a city where people are living in the center city because it is a nice place to live. A visitor sees residents taking care of their city and out walking the streets and sidewalks. Visitors see residents with baby carriages and people on bicycles and other signs of life and love and respect that are seldom found in other American cities.

Tourism is not damaged by the city enforcing its open container laws, it is enhanced. What makes Charleston so special is that it is a place that its residents love, care for and protect.

Some have suggested a more lax, wink and nod approach to the open container law, including asking violators to pour their beverages out. Not only would our streets and sidewalks become malodorous, but the quality of life in Charleston would suffer as well. The fact that in this city alcoholic consumption must be consumed in private places or in public places where permits have been approved for that purpose seems to me to be an extremely small price to pay for a beautiful, livable, diverse and interesting American city.

Joseph P. Riley Jr. is mayor of Charleston.