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Toledo City Council Repeals Nuisance Ordinance
By Fletcher Word
Sojourner’s Truth Editor
In October 2019, Toledo
City Council passed a commercial property nuisance ordinance
which was designed to hold businesses accountable, through a
point system, for noise disturbances, violence and crime in
and around their properties.
The ordinance was passed,
said John Madigan, senior attorney for the City of Toledo,
to stop problems occurring at any type of commercial
establishments. However, the business that felt the
immediate impact of the ordinances were bars, particularly
minority-owned bars in the central city.
Such minority-owned bars
began to react to the ordinance. In early January, minority
bar owners gathered at Mott Branch Library to voice their
concerns about the ordinance and question whether they were
being racially targeted by the ordinance.
As a result, several
attendees joined forces to try to overturn what they saw as
an unfair ordinance. Zahra Aprili, Blair Toledo Johnson and
Crystal Orr – all of whom have business and entrepreneurial
backgrounds – determined that they would collaborate and
reach out to council members.
First of all, they
determined that the ordinance in its current form was not
legally sustainable.
“The city would have had
legal problems,” says Aprili. The legal advice they
obtained, assured the trio that the ordinance could not
stand in the long term – that it was unconstitutional
because it denied business owners both due process and equal
protection under the law.
“We got a conversation
going,” says Orr. “Let’s form and make it fair across the
board. We were hoping for the best – that city council would
be open to including input from the community.”
The group reached out
individually to city council members on the Neighborhood
Committee to get the October ordinance overturned and so it
happened. On February 11, the full Council voted unanimously
to repeal.
“If there is a fight
outside a bar, the police blame [the bar owner],” says
Councilman Larry Sykes explaining the impact of the point
system the nuisance ordinance imposed. “If a bar owner calls
the police, she is assessed for that call.”
The October ordinance was
imperfect but many perceive a need for an ordinance that
addresses such nuisances, crime or violence.”
“We need an ordinance,”
says Sykes. There are businesses – bar businesses, for
example – in any neighborhood, that are well established and
have never had an issue with such nuisances, says Sykes.
On the other hand, he
stresses, there are “some who come to a business to make
fast money and make problems.”
The Aprili/Johnson/Orr
group are not finished with their work – their legislative
efforts. An organization has been formed through their
efforts – the Toledo Metropolitan Tavern and Pub
Association. “We haven’t always been effective at
collaboration,” says Johnson. He and his colleagues hope
that the newly-formed alliance of locally-owned
establishments can enhance that collaboration for the
benefit of all.
“We are proposing
legislation,” says Orr. “To set up a nightlife advisory
board, to help our industry and the city work together and
to start a community outreach board to avoid reactionary
[responses] and because we want input on legislation. The
majority of responses are the reactionary responses of
people.”
A nightlife advisory
board, says Orr, can be modeled after existing boards in
cities such as Sacramento, Vancouver and New York – a board
that keeps the city advised, opens dialogue and keeps the
parties proactive and involved.
The October ordinance
didn’t allay the concerns of either city officials or
business owners, but allaying those concerns is still front
and center.
“How do we fix this?” asks
Sykes. “We need an additional ordinance.”
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