Shreveport Pursuing New Noise Ordinance To Combat Street Violence-- Liz Swaine Joins AGR
The controversy of Texas Street’s blaring music, brawls and shootings has raged on for months unanswered by a City Council beset with division and scandals on racial and partisan lines while ultimately the people and businesses of Shreveport suffer. Is it time to enact a special ordinance for the Entertainment district itself? Or will a total overhaul of ordinances on noise and public disturbances be necessary.
Do we have to reinvent the wheel here? Or does a special carveout that allows Texas Street to flourish like Bourbon Street or Beale Street? One thing is seems certain: it’s either going to fall to the business owners to shoulder the cost of keeping the peace, or its going to fall to the taxpayers, neither of whom can afford it. Maybe its time for a larger conversation… about civility in public spaces too.
Director of the Shreveport Downtown Development Authority, Liz Swaine joined Stephen and Louis on AGR Monday to discuss the prospect of a new noise ordinance for the city, and apparently in Louisiana a good template is hard to find.
Stephen Parr: So we've got some business going on downtown right now at the city council work session. There are a lot of folks there upset, commenting about the city, about what happened in downtown over the weekend and previous weekend. We should get Liz Swain, she's the executive director of the Downtown Development Authority. We should ask to see if we can get her on the phone. Great. Liz Wayne, welcome back to American Ground Radio. Do I have it? Oh, we had her, we lost her. Oh, alright. Let's see if I can get her back in there. Liz. Wayne, are you back?
Liz Swaine: Yes. I got spit out of the system, so now I'm back.
Stephen Parr: Oh no. Oh no. Well, it's good to have you back. Okay. You are downtown right now. You're at the government plaza there for the hearing, the public comment section on downtown. Yeah. What are the things that you're hearing?
Liz Swaine: They call it a council work session. Yeah, absolutely.
Stephen Parr: So what are the things that you're hearing there at the work session?
Liz Swaine: There's a lot that was on the agenda today. Do you want to be more specific,
Stephen Parr: I guess about,
Liz Swaine: It might take me three hours to get over.
Stephen Parr: Yeah, true. I guess about downtown, about the complaints about music and the idea that they may need to change the music, the outdoor music ordinance, downtown ordinance. Yeah. Right,
Liz Swaine: Right, right, right. So that is ordinance number one 11, and it was supposed to be on the agenda for Vote tomorrow. And it looks like the city council is going to table it for two weeks. But what one 11 is, is a brand new noise ordinance, not only for downtown, this is a kind of belief that people have, but this is the noise ordinance for the city of Shreveport, which is very much needed. And so it is a brand new ordinance because it was determined by our interim city attorney that the last ordinance was unenforceable. Because over the years, what the city tends to do a lot, it'll take an original law, amend it over time. And this thing had been amended so much that it had become kind of a monster. And certain sections of it were in conflict with other sections. And it was determined that if they ever took anybody to court, that the ordinance would be thrown out. So they needed to start all over again, which is what they've done.
Stephen Parr: So part of the problem may be that we've never really been able to take anybody to court over the loud music. And so people are like, I can get away with this.
Liz Swaine: Well, I think that there is something to that. I think that because there has either been a noise ordinance that hasn't been utilized, that has been probably more roundly ignored because has not had a history of utilization, there have been people who have pushed the limits, which we tend to do that as human beings. We tend to push a little bit and then get called on it. We a bit more, push a little bit more. And so I think what we're seeing downtown right now is that different businesses have gotten used to a certain noise level and it has worked for them, maybe not for their neighbors so much, but it's worked for them. And so now reigning folks in after you've been able to do something a certain for a long time is fairly traumatic.
Louis R. Avallone: So Liz, this is a first step. I assume you don't expect this to be the end all be all. What's the next step? No, not at all. What's the next step?
Liz Swaine: Well, we have got to have, and look, I've had this conversation with the mayor. I've had this conversation with the police chief and our city councilman, Gary Brooks and a number of others. The city can't keep dumping 30 and 40 officers into downtown Shreveport on Friday and Saturday nights between midnight and four or 5:00 AM which is when the problems seem to more often happen, enough police, they're needed in other parts of the city. There's crime that happens everywhere. And so we know at some time the will is going to be lost to be putting that many officers downtown. When that happens, we need to have ordinances that work. We need to have ordinance ordinances on the books that make sense that the officers can come in, they can write a citation, and that citation will lead to some meaningful fine, or maybe even down the road, if you just keep violating, keep violating, it leads to you losing your alcohol beverage license, which would in effect shut a liquor establishment down.
So that would be a good first stop for police enforcement. There are a lot of other things too. Obviously we need a reconstituted, I believe, downtown unit that is downtown all the time, not just some of the time. We can utilize technology. There's so much out there from drums to lights, cameras, and all of those things that we can be utilizing more if we don't have the person power to do it. So I'm not a police officer, nor do I pretend to be one, but I sure will say, let's try something different if what we're doing is not working.
Stephen Parr: Liz, we've got about 45 seconds left here. We see on the show. A lot of times that success leaves clues. Is there another city about our size that has a thriving downtown environment that we should be looking at and saying maybe they've got some policies we should copy?
Liz Swaine: Oh yeah. Never reinvent the wheel. There are always other cities. But I will tell you something interesting. When I started reaching out to cities around Louisiana to get copies of their noise ordinance so we wouldn't have to reinvent the wheel, none of them had a good one. There are at least two cities right now that are looking to us to look at our ordinance so that they may utilize it after we get it finished with it. So we're going to have to look outside Louisiana. I can tell you that.
Stephen Parr: That's very, very interesting. And in the meantime, we still have downtown. We still have some good fun things that you can do downtown and still listen businesses in the area. Yeah,
Liz Swaine: And look, absolutely. Downtown is not a scary place. It's not a crime-ridden place. Yes, we have some issues late at night and on a couple of nights in one smallish area, but other than that, come downtown and have a great time. Don't paint the whole area with a broad brush.
Stephen Parr: Liz Swain with the Downtown Development Authority. Thank you so much for spending some time with us here on American Ground Radio. Thank you guys. Appreciate your time. Appreciate you. Take care.
Liz Swaine: You bet. Thank you.
WARNING: Graphic Video Content