City concerned with banquet hall fights

Jackson Bell

Plagued by a recent uptick of weekend melees at banquet halls and

other large venues, city officials formed a committee to kick around

solutions for quelling the violence.

Glendale Police have dispatched 101 officers to respond to 11

fights at eight event halls during the past two months. About 44

man-hours equaling between $3,000 and $4,000 of police work have gone

to breaking up the brawls, said Capt. Mark Distaso, who oversees the

department’s Field Services.

Eleven people have been arrested at the brawls, with charges

ranging from disturbing the peace and assault to multiple assaults on

police officers.

“[The fracases] expose the innocent, uninvolved people who just

happen to live nearby to the hazardous incidents or the partygoers

that happen to be there when it first breaks out,” said Distaso, who

also serves on the ad hoc committee. “But it’s also a potentially

dangerous situation for the police officers involved who have to

break up crowds of 150 to 400 people.

“So all the way around, it’s a significant public-safety issue

that needs to be addressed,” he added.

The committee features about a dozen representatives from the

city’s police, fire, billing, safety and zoning departments. It plans

on submitting a report to the City Council by early fall.

To conquer the outbreaks of violence, the committee is examining

the city’s criteria for what is considered a banquet hall, looking at

ways to minimize the effects of having the venues next to homes and

reviewing licensing procedures.

The committee members are also considering ways of recouping money

from the venues to cover the high public-safety tabs, Distaso said.

Mayor Bob Yousefian said he would like to see a bond system set up

requiring venue operators to put money in an account that the city

can pull from whenever the police and fire departments have to

respond to problems.

“The best way to deal with this is to hit them in their pocket-

books,” Yousefian said. “If you hit them with a couple $2,000 or

$2,500 fines, boy, they’ll straighten out faster than you can

imagine.”

Distaso said factors for the recent uptick in incidents include an

increase in banquet halls and other large venues throughout the city

-- totaling 17 -- and the summer season, when overall crime tends to

rise because people are out more.

But the unruly crowds at the venues usually transcends ethnicity

or class status, Distaso said.

“Whenever a large number of people are in the same place at the

same time for an extended period and an ongoing supply of alcohol is

provided, it’s just a given in human nature that things are bound to

happen,” he said.