Drunk in Scottsdale

Troy Hayden from Fox 10 News aired this story last night on Scottsdale’s bar district [link to video], across the street from our historic Villa Monterey neighborhood.

Thank you Mayor Jim Lane, Councilman Dennis Robbins, Councilwoman Linda Milhaven, et. al., for promoting the highest concentration of liquor licenses in the entire state, right in historic Downtown Scottsdale.

Busy bar district keeps first responders busy every weekend

Posted: May 14, 2014 6:28 PM Updated: May 15, 2014 12:52 AM
By Troy Hayden, FOX 10 News – bio

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – It’s the biggest scene in the valley, scantily clad club-goers, limos, bottle service, and VIP tables.

The streets are packed, all the pretty people getting together to see and be seen.

Old Town Scottsdale on a Friday night is like a mini Las Vegas or a dolled up New Orleans.

The booze is flowing as thousands of people are down here, most of them perfectly fine. But when some of them aren’t it’s Scottsdale Fire Department’s station two that gets the call or rather calls. They are in Old Town several times every weekend night; FOX 10 spent last Friday night with them, and we didn’t have to wait long to see action.

All right we have our first call of the night, it’s an assault at a bar, let’s go.

Traffic is thick, and it’s a wonder that firefighters are even able to get their trucks into the scene, but they do. We found our victim, a man without his shirt who was semi conscious. Crews look for a gash on his head because he fell.

So this guy was apparently inside the club, got into a fight, and apparently hit the back of his head, so they are stabilizing him now.

Witnesses say that the guy was on the floor; four security guards were on top of him.

The man passed out again as firefighters worked on him; he was put on a stretcher and taken to the hospital.

Just 20 minutes later firefighters slid down the poles again, call number two with a young man at a bachelor party so drunk that he cannot walk.

Firefighters asked him if he was drinking beer or whiskey. “Yeah, yeah I was drinking beers,” said the man.

It looked like quite a few beers, again they loaded their patient onto a stretcher and into the ambulance.

FOX 10 asked firefighters how many calls they do in the area on a weekend night, they replied “So far we’re over three so approximately six to ten,” said Division Chief Kerry Swick.

And it’s not just firefighters who are kept busy. We saw a swarm of police officers making several arrests. One young woman is going to pose for a mugshot in a cocktail dress, and three young men were ending their night in a way you know they had not planned on.

Jeff Walther is Scottsdale’s Assistant Police Chief.

“When you roll in 8-10-12 thousand people in a very small area and have as few problems as we do we have the fights, some urinating in public, the littering, but we address those things immediately,” said Walther.

Some neighbors don’t agree, FOX 10 asked if they thought it was a problem area. “It’s totally a problem area, there’s a lot of violence still,” said Bill Crawford.

Bill Crawford heads up a neighborhood association trying to tone down the bar district.

“I want to see the noise ordinance tightened up, I want to see the loopholes taken out of the bar safety ordinance, I want to see lighting, I want to see more boots on the ground,” said Crawford.

What we saw last Friday night was a crowded bar district packed with police and security with just a few people who couldn’t handle the scene. Their partying stopped in a very abrupt and unpleasant way.