By Adam Pagnucco.
Let’s start applying what we learned this week to the county’s newest crime initiative – the executive’s proposed legislation to crack down on late night businesses.
The bill is not yet online but I obtained a draft. The bill pertains to businesses that have “an ‘other tobacco products retailer’ license, a food license, or a liquor license where the products sold are meant to be or are regularly consumed on-site” and are in “priority areas” identified by the police department “based upon public safety indicators, including crime levels, as areas where late night businesses would benefit by operating in accordance with a late night safety plan.” The pertinent businesses are those that are “open to the public at any time between midnight and 6:00 AM.” In other words, the police can pick any area in the county which they believe has a crime problem and impose requirements on late night businesses located therein.
The primary requirement for these businesses contained in the bill is that they must submit “a late night business plan” to the police department. They cannot operate the business unless the plan is approved and the business is administered in conformance with it. The plan expires after three years and then must be succeeded by a new approved plan.
I have a lot of questions about this legislation.
First, as we have seen previously in this series, only 14-20% of crime takes place between the hours of midnight and 6 AM. While property crime has been rising in late night, violent crime has been rising faster in the morning and afternoon. Accordingly, the legislation does nothing to address the large majority of crime occurring outside its designated hours.
Second, the details of plan approvals are delegated to method 2 regulations. That means while the council may approve or disapprove these regulations, they are automatically adopted if the council fails to act within 60 days. That gives the executive branch and the police department substantial power to shape the specifics of this bill. If the council is inclined to pass the bill, they should examine which specifics to place into statute in order to limit the discretion of the bureaucracy.
Third, approval and enforcement are real questions. Depending on how the bill is used, there could be dozens of plans (or more) requiring approval and subsequent enforcement. Does the department have enough staff for that? Are police staff sufficiently educated in business economics to avoid imposing requirements that would kill off these businesses? Are negotiations over plan details possible or would the department impose templates? All these questions and more must be answered.
Fourth, non-compliance is penalized as a Class A violation in the bill. In Montgomery County, criminal Class A violations have maximum fines of $1,000 and maximum jail terms of 6 months. Civil Class A violations have $500 fines for initial offenses and $750 fines for subsequent offenses. The bill does not specify whether offenses are criminal and civil. For lawbreaking businesses selling unauthorized alcohol, for example, are fines of this magnitude sufficient to change behavior when they could be making many thousands in profits a night?
Fifth, one wonders if lawbreaking businesses will bother to file plans since they are already breaking other laws.
And finally, the bill does not address truly serious issues like the crisis in police staffing or declining police enforcement of crimes against society. Those issues seem much more relevant to the county’s crime problems than a few lawbreaking late night businesses. Why should law-abiding businesses be subject to additional county bureaucracy because county leaders have not been staffing the police department adequately?
Overall, the proposed legislation may not be inherently bad, although some businesses subject to new regulations through no fault of their own might disagree. But it seems clearly inadequate to make a significant dent in crime. That would take a substantial rebuilding of the police department, something that county leaders have so far been reluctant to do.