The Bar Issue

This question in today from an anonymous poster: What are your thoughts on the "City Haul" 262 and Cruise Inn issues and what if anything should the city do about the bars in this town?

My view on this situation is somewhat unique as I used to be a bar manager. Early in my career I was the beverage manager at Water Street Brewery in Milwaukee. We trained our beverage and wait staff to check Ids for anyone that was not obviously over 30.

My point, people who serve alcoholic beverages need to exercise extreme caution in seeing that it is done in a responsible manner. If people get “over-served” you need to cut them off. If problems with behavior creep up the management of these bars need to look at their policies and adjust them as necessary in order to be good community neighbors. If they need security, they should get it in order to keep things on the up and up.

There have been problems with serving under-age patrons and violence occurring. This can not be tolerated and if the operators of these taverns can not control the behavior within their bars then they should face penalties up to and including fines and if necessary the revocation of their liquor licenses.

At a minimum I would encourage increased police patrols and inspections when you consider the recent history there.

I don’t know enough at this point about what the proprietors have done to clean up their bars to say yes or no on the issue of license revocation.

I understand that the possibility exists that a due process hearing would be required in order to pull a liquor license and that may cost the city $4,000 to $8,000 per occurrence. That is unfortunate but may be necessary.

My thanks for your question.

Dooley for Alderman

Welcome to the Dooley for Alderman blog.

This will be the web based home of my campaign for the Aldermanic seat of the 7th District of the City of Racine.

My wife Sue and I moved into Racine three and a half years ago when our home of eight years in Caledonia became a victim of the most recent road construction project on Highway 31 north of 4 Mile Road.

Since moving into the city I have become more sensitive to the issues here and wish to participate in the process of moving this city forward.

Racine is a community that has suffered through the losses of many manufacturing jobs, increasing violence, crime, gangs and a school district that tries mightily but under-performs.

Despite the challenges this community has faced the downtown area has undergone a dramatic and successful renovation that promises to continue with the Pointe Blue project.

Mayor Gary Becker deserves a great deal of praise for his leadership through that process. I have watched as Mayor Becker worked with people like Alderman Helding (a partisan opposite) for the growth and benefit of the community. It is within that spirit of cooperation and community that I enter this race.

Racine needs to continue its renovation process and continue to change and prosper in order to add the new development this community desperately needs.

We need to honestly address the issues facing our community. We need to tackle crime, promote economic development and find ways to lower our tax burden in order to encourage people to live and to do business here.

I will be addressing the issues facing our community and providing honest and open commentary on those issues on this site throughout the campaign.

I thank you for your time in reading this and ask for your support and vote on April 3rd.