After another uneventful Leprecon where the Hoboken Police Department made just four arrests, 1st Ward Councilman Mike DeFusco plans to introduce local legislation to create a fund to pay for public safety and clean up costs related to bar crawls.
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
“Taxpayers have long hoped to recoup tax dollars spent on policing and cleaning up after bar crawls like Santa-con and Lepre-con,” DeFusco said in a statement.
“An overwhelming majority of bar owners are responsible partners and have looked to work with the City to contribute into a fund that would help support quality of life in downtown Hoboken, however the administration has been unwilling to have productive conversions. Bar crawls will continue whether we like them or not, but it’s long overdue that we stop dropping the bill on taxpayers.”
The councilman added that he would introduce a first reading of the ordinance at this evening’s council meeting, which is scheduled for 7 p.m. at City Hall, located at 94 Washington St.
This year’s Leprecon took place on Saturday and resulted in just four arrests, the same as last year, to the delight of many officials who once dreaded the annual St. Patrick’s Day themed bar crawl.
However, that appears to be a thing of the past, as one former City Hall official deemed this past weekends festivities “lepre-calmed.”
In one of his earliest initiatives as mayor, Ravi Bhalla introduced a Public Safety Task Force in January 2018, a group whose main goal is to curtail unruly bar crawls in the city.
Councilman DeFusco is a bit clueless about Hoboken bar owners’ willingness to meaningfully contribute to the the City’s costs of cleaning up after their “events.” The year before the parade was cancelled, Mayor Zimmer asked bar owners to contribute to a fund to help defray the sanitation and public safety costs of the debacle they profited so handsomely from.
Bar owners organized not to contribute but to stop others from contributing. They accused the Mayor of trying to extort them. Nary a penny was raised.
The next year the debauchery continued unabated and two women filed rape complaints, and the City incurred about $100,000 in costs while the bars put their entire year into the black from the profits of that one day. This caused Zimmer to take the action that set the course to end the madness.
Had the bar owners responded to Zimmer’s request for voluntary contributions the prior year, from the people DeFusco described as “responsible partners” the parade would likely still be with us.
So ironically it is thanks to the dearth of those “responsible partners” that DeFusco describes as plentiful, that the madness has ended. Their unabashed arrogance and greed killed the goose that laid their golden egg, and try as he might in exchange for campaign $$, Councilman DeFusco will not be able to bring the goose back to life.
A lot of these cases get change of venues to Kearny Municipal Court. The very court room where a political operative is knee deep in a case.
With the collapse of Sybil’s Cave, one can only hope some of the venomous louses like the Facepuncer’s Coach Stan will go the way of the cave people as well.
Wonder if Double Jeopardy finally delivered to the hostess of the cave?