Fast food restaurants in the downtown area rely on business from late-night drinkers, but some owners say the rowdy and destructive crowds leave them with overflowing trash cans and lofty security and repair bills.
Last Friday night, the unusually warm October weather provided yet another opportunity for fast food owners to make a profit. Still, those owners know staying open late means financial gains and pains.
If it's not bolted down, they try and steal everything,"" said Aaron Upton, owner of Real Chili. ""I've lost tables, chairs, refrigerators '¦ pictures off the wall.""
Mary Carbine, Business Improvement District executive director, said police have told her numerous times that conflict seems to break out in the fast food restaurants on State Street because the lines are through the door. She said, as an observation, ""Late night at bar time, there are not enough places serving late-night food, so there tends to be long lines and maybe even competition for food.""
Some restaurant owners have resorted to hiring private security guards to help with long lines, rowdy drunks and thieves.
Taco Bell/KFC General Manager Mark Wilson said he was forced to hire two security guards for Thursday through Saturday nights. He said it was a choice he had to make after repeated instances of vandalism and several lessons learned.
Last year, Wilson said drunken patrons would kick in his door, steal items off the wall and draw graffiti on bathroom walls.
A year later, Wilson said nothing has changed and the police are called to the restaurant at least once or twice a weekend.
""Everything's nailed down,"" Wilson said, echoing Upton's thoughts. He said he has worked on State Street for six years but ""nothing seems to change, even when the city wants it to.""
Even after $100,000 was pumped into the MPD for downtown safety and an ordinance was passed to cap the number of bars in the State Street and University Avenue area, Wilson said the only way to completely fix the problem is to remove the bars because
""the kids are just blowing some steam off.""
Still, Upton said, ""it's the nature of the beast.""
""I think you get drunk and the thrill of trying to take something might be fun '¦ perhaps trying to impress your friends,"" he said, adding that ""with drinking comes that flooding process.""
What Upton said would help police downtown is more police officers. He said he was still holding reservations on whether the Alcohol Density Plan would make a dent in violence and problems downtown.
As far as helping with the flood from the bars, Carbine said the congestion might be less if more fast food places decided to stay open late.
But she said, ""We hear frequently from business, 'Is it profitable to stay open to those hours?'
