No Booze This Year at Jazz Concert in Gaslamp

In the second dispute in two weeks over what type of activities should be allowed to revitalize the Gaslamp Quarter, a daylong street concert planned for Aug. 24 has lost its chance to serve liquor.

Concert organizer Ron Hagey, producer of the San Diego Jazz Festival, let the deadline pass for requesting a one-day liquor permit for his “Michelob Street Scene ‘85” pop concert after state Alcoholic Beverage Control department (ABC) officials told him his request would be denied.

The concert is to take place on 5th Avenue between J and K streets.

“I have been completely defeated,” Hagey said. “That’s it. Boom.”

But unlike the case of Trax, a new disco in the Gaslamp Quarter that is waging a lone battle against police and city officials to stay open from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m., ABC’s refusal to grant Hagey a liquor permit has pitted that agency and San Diego police against civic leaders and businessmen.

Where the police saw criminal incidents and a potential riot scene in the second of two Street Scene concerts Hagey put on at the same site last summer, local merchants who attended the concert saw only several thousand Gaslamp Quarter visitors who were drawn to the area by the street party atmosphere.

“If we’re trying to encourage activity and excitement and development, how do we do that without breaking laws?” said Art Skolnik, executive director of the Gaslamp Quarter Council. “Downtown has got to be a place where these activities can take place.”

Skolnik said the attitude of the police seemed to be that “it’s easier to have an abandoned downtown with no people in it and no crime.”

Lt. Jim Sing of the vice squad said officers made three arrests at the August concert last year. The arrests were for serving alcohol to a minor, serving an intoxicated person, and drinking outside an area that was fenced off for alcohol. Police refrained from making more arrests or shutting off the beer taps, Sing said, out of fear that such actions “would backfire or cause a riot.”

Sing said his recommendation that ABC deny Hagey a liquor permit was based on previous experience with Hagey’s concerts, not because the police are against concerts in the Gaslamp Quarter.

“He is the promoter and profiteer of this (concert),” Sing said. “This event is simply for the profit of Rob Hagey at the expense of the people of San Diego. (He is) using the streets for free.”

ABC district administrator Pete Case said decisions on one-day liquor permits are made case by case, and that 80% to 90% of the requests are approved. But he added simply, “Mr. Hagey can’t get a license.”

Hagey, a La Jolla tennis instructor who said he has lost money producing the yearly San Diego Jazz Festival, said the police and ABC were being inflexible in ignoring his promises to improve security at the event.

“They look at me like I’m some kind of sleazeball,” he said. “I’m not in favor of drinking in the streets, but if you secure it properly, I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t have it.”

Hagey’s supporters want to reshape the bureaucracy to make it easier to hold events such as the Street Scene.

“I think the Police Department will have to change their attitude, if that’s what it is,” said J. Michael McDade, a member of the Downtown Marketing Consortium and former chief of staff for Mayor Roger Hedgecock. “They view any infusion of 2,000 to 5,000 people (into the Gaslamp Quarter) as a problem . . . It’s a natural evolution as we move from a sleepy town into a real city.”

McDade said he will meet with Case and Hagey next week, and said he would like to see the city manager’s office work with police and other agencies to draft a unified policy on outdoor events.

Hedgecock said through a spokesman that the Street Scene “is the kind of event that we need downtown.” He said he was “hopeful that any problems that exist can be resolved so that the project can go forward.”

Police cited other complaints about last summer’s concerts besides the arrests. Sing said noise from the rock, rhythm and blues, and folk performers bothered nearby residents.

But Dan Pearson, who is rebuilding the Horton Grand Hotel in the Gaslamp Quarter, said he watched the performers and audience at last August’s concert from a window of the Grand Pacific Hotel on J Street. “They’re hot,” he said. “They’re great. I’ve been in the Gaslamp Quarter seven years, and this is the kind of thing we’ve fantasized about.”