The ever so popular downtown strip of Buffalo, the entertainment district of Chippewa, has had a new law placed upon it as of October 2, 2012. Anyone under the age of 21 is not allowed to be downtown on the entertainment district past 10pm any day of the week! Typically for the past 6 months, Thursday nights were the one day of the week set aside for college students to be able to go downtown for “College Thursdays” as a trail period to see if containing the time that college students partied and hungout downtown would decrease the amount of violence and incidents occurring downtown. With this law set it place it appears that the trial period had no impact on what people were hoping for.
With the new law in place a few questions arise:
How will this ban impact businesses downtown? Despite the negative criticism of the under 21 youth (ages 18-20) it is hard to deny that they contain a large amount of disposable income and with downtown being the main hangout spot for almost all of the colleges in buffalo you can only image the amount of money that this age group contributes to the clubs and bars profit on College Thursdays.
Where will the youth go? If college students under 21 aren’t allowed to be downtown past 10pm they’re most likely going to have to find other means of entertaining themselves. Despite the hopes of some people, all college students won’t remain on their campuses and locked in their dorms all seven days of the week, so they are bound to branch out and find other places to go to, and seeing as how this law only affects the entertainment district here in Buffalo, this can be a problem for some clubs and bars downtown because that means other clubs and bars will be gaining their profit.
How will this impact workers? There are many people that drive cabs, work in clubs, restaurants, and bars downtown that make a large portion of their income off of the 18-20 crowd when they are downtown. You have to begin to think to yourself that if these businesses are losing money they will have to find someone to make up for the loss whether it be pay cuts or laying people off, something will have to give.
How will this ban impact the 21 and over crowd? Although many 21 and older are probably for this ban they probably fail to realize that the prices at these restaurants, clubs, and bars will probably skyrocket. If the clubs, bars, and restaurants don’t have that income from the 18-20 group they’re going to need to charge a lot more for drinks, entry fees, and food to make up for the money they’re missing out on.
Although this new law is intended to try and better the Entertainment District of Buffalo you really have to look at it and think about all the ways that it is also hurting the Entertainment District. The under 21 crowd is a large component in the economic growth of the Entertainment District whether the people that support the ban like it or not. Maybe if police and security downtown enforced their laws and rules better that would be able to crack down on the crimes and incidents occurring downtown without having to result to such extreme measures of setting this law in place.
Sources:
Information on the ban/law – http://www.wivb.com/dpp/news/local/chippewa-ban-may-extend-to-thursdays
Picture – http://media.photobucket.com/image/21%20sign/jackrabbitstavern/youhaveto…