Bar managers join together to protect the downtown core

A group of London bar owners and managers have banded together to help create a new association in the hopes of creating a safer, more party-friendly downtown core.

The London Bar and Entertainment Association (LBEA) is still in it's fledgling stages, but can boast the support of the majority of downtown establishments along with the London Police Service and the Alcohol and Gaming Commission.

“The main goal is to create a downtown core where people can have fun in and feel that they are safe in,” said Mark Serre, the LBEA's chair and manger of GT's. “There's been a couple of stabbings downtown, it's not the environment that you want to go out and party in. So with us sharing information and working more closely with the police and AGC, that allows us to not welcome those [troubling] people.

“We want the people who are for fun, not the people who are selling drugs, or stealing purses, or coming out with knives.”

The association is by no means a new idea as it's molded on similar organizations in places like Whistler, Toronto and New York City, and it's reception by local bars was overwhelmingly positive according to Serre, who believes that they have around 24 members at the moment.

“It's been really well received,” Serre said. “I think there's only been two bars that [we] haven't been able to establish contact with, but everybody else has pretty much from day one has been on board.”

The association is hoping to work in tandem with London Police Service Community Oriented Response Unit.

“They're specifically trained to deal with chronic issues or issues that might fall outside of the realm of uniformed officers,” explained Insp. John Pare, a member of London police Service community policing branch. “It's a group of officers that respond to issues throughout the city in relation to chronic problems, and issues that sometimes can't be handled by the uniformed officers due to time constraints or projects that have to come out of it.

“At this point we're meeting to see what exactly they're looking for and how we can help them out.”

On top of trying to make the downtown core safer, the association is also hoping to forge ties with both local cab companies and London Transit to help make it more accessible on weekends.

“The plan that we have to help increase the ways out of the downtown at the end of the night,” Serre explained. “There is a group out there trying to get the LTC to bus later on Friday and Saturday nights, and we are doing what we can to support that idea.”

The group is slated to meet on a monthly basis, but the reception has been so good that Serre said that he frequently gets calls from other managers regarding incidents that have taken place.

“I've found a lot of guys aren't waiting for the meeting,” Serre said. “They're saying ‘these guys just got kicked out - don't let them in your bar' or ‘this is the problem we're having with noise complaints' or something like that where the information is being passed without even waiting for the meeting.”

Which is exactly what they're hoping will happen - create open channels of communication to help make the district safer, and through that, more fun. But he also wants to stress that the association is by no means targeting London's substantial student population, that they're in fact trying to cater towards them in a sense.

“I hope they won't have that negative impression about it,” Serre said. “I think it's going to be a good thing for them. Never mind being targeted, it's the opposite. It's not the students causing problems, every time you read in the paper that something's happened, the guy was from Toronto.

“When I ran the bars at Western, it seemed that every time we had an issue up there it was guys from Detroit and guys from Toronto and Brampton coming to our city to party.”

Insp. Pare agrees that the students shouldn't feel targeted by the association or the police downtown.

“This has nothing to do with whether they're students or not - it has to do with everyone attending the downtown area,” Insp. Pare said. “I think it's about working together to try to address some of their concerns in curbing the violence that sometimes occurs when the bars are let out.

“It's a goal that everyone in the community is trying to achieve in creating a safer downtown for people to attend and enjoy the businesses there.”