A whole mess of folks gathered this week at Tacoma Police headquarters to discuss a thorn that’s been stuck in Tacoma’s side for years. Club owners, bar owners, police, city officials, fire officials, restaurant owners, a few bar patrons, community organizers – all were there to try and figure out how to help nurture Tacoma’s nightlife without ruining the fun for everyone else. They were invited by City of Tacoma Safe and Clean team P.R.O.A.C.T.I.V.E., which hosted the three-hour brainstorming session. By the time they were done, everyone gathered had produced what will likely amount to about 10 or 20 pages of suggestions.



That’s good — because cracking this nut is going to be almost as difficult as typing P.R.O.A.C.T.I.V.E. more than once.



“I’m glad the city is coming around,” says Bob Hill, who represented The Swiss with co-owner Jack McQuade. “I think this was very positive, having everyone communicating.”



Hill’s comments are predicated on some difficult past experiences, which he and other bar and club owners have dealt with for years. Those troubles include security, crime, a sometimes confusing morass of rules and regulations, associated costs, and a hefty cabaret tax on top of all it all. Several bar owners mentioned that in the past, city officials had simply dictated policy, and didn’t reach out to the business owners being affected by it. They noted that many of them pay thousands of dollars per month in city cabaret taxes, for example. The 5 percent tax was instituted after officials decided that Tacoma Police officers shouldn’t be allowed to work off-duty as security personnel at clubs and bars. The tax was supposed mitigate that by paying for increased police patrols downtown, and absorb some of the costs associated with bars and clubs, such as sending a dozen squad cars to handle an out-of-control bar fight. A year later, Tacoma PD reversed it policy, and again allowed officers to work at clubs off-duty. Many club owners who hire off-duty officers, frequently at the urging of police officials, feel like they’re being asked to pay twice. The cabaret tax, meanwhile, goes into the city’s general fund. Some bar owners suggest that if city officials are looking for way to pay for new P.R.O.A.C.T.I.V.E.-born programs and policies, money produced by the cabaret tax is a good place to start.



But bar owners aren’t the only ones griping. Citizens lodge complaints against some club owners, whose patrons sometimes stumble out into the street and ruin Nick at Nite by screaming, littering and/or shooting guns in the air, for example.



City officials, in turn, are caught in the middle, trying to balance the needs of everyone involved, while finding money to pay for police officers, code enforcement, street clean up, parking, and dozens of other costs associated with a roaring nightlife. If nothing else, bringing everyone together made it clear, perhaps for the first time, that bar owners, residents and city officials are in it together.



“At one point we just decided that we needed to come together to find some common ground,” says Tacoma Police Lieutenant Sean Gustason, who also works on the P.R.O.A.C.T.I.V.E. team.



Suggestions for dealing with issues ranging from transportation and parking to security and community outreach were flying everywhere. Notable suggestions included creating information-sharing networks between cars and clubs that would allow owners to stay up on which patrons are knuckleheads; requiring the creation of an approved security plan in order to receive a city business license; increasing transportation options such as taxi service, or extending operating hours for Link Light Rail; and focused enforcement of crowd capacity and over-serving laws to manage crowds and crowd behavior.



The rest of the list will be available soon. Stay tuned.