Public Safety Committee - Regular Meeting

...younger to provide a nutritious meal while physically dining on the bus, easing the challenge to locate resources.

As we all know, mental health is an important issue nationally and certainly is in our community as well. We are continuing to see an increase in the number of people who are starting to reach out and seek mental health services. We also have a number of people with mental health needs who don't reach out. And sometimes those individuals don't recognize that they have mental health needs And police may be called to situations in which they're involved with. I wanted to speak quickly about what we have been doing the last couple of years here in the community. There was a community health needs assessment in 2024 looking at what are the behavioral health needs of this community. We had over 200 representatives from various agencies, including police, first responders, firefighters, different community advocacy groups, people representing providers, people with lived experience. And that group identified that we had a gap in our crisis continuum. The gap was specifically looking at having a safe place to go when someone is in crisis. During the last two years, we have worked to strengthen having someone to respond when someone's in crisis. That has included having someone to talk to through 988 or the call crisis line. We now answer over 6,000 calls a month from people who are experiencing a mental health crisis. We also have a mobile crisis team that's deployed from the 988 number if someone is in need of having A licensed clinician come to them and perform a response. We now have around 30 calls a month that come in for that. And then we also have a new crisis center that will be opening the end of this month beginning of next month. We're in construction right now. We've just hired staff and begun training. um and that is only due to the support from louisville metro council as well as the mayor's office in helping us provide some funding in order to create the crisis center that will be available here at 914 East Broadway. We will have an adult crisis centers as well as a center that will focus on youth. And we are hopeful because the national data says that the answer to people in mental health crisis is having a full continuum with all options available in a community. And that's what we've been focused on bolstering and building. So I look forward to our discussion today.

Good afternoon. I'm Lieutenant Les Skaggs. I'm the commander of the LMPD Homicide Unit. I want to appreciate you all coming here today so quickly. The reason we're here today is we want to discuss a recent arrest that was made from a homicide that occurred in 2025. On Friday, February 21st of 2025, just before noon, there was a shooting at the driver's license regional office in Valley Station. At that location, we had three shooters who approached on foot. where there was a crowd, a line of people waiting to go into the DMV. All three of these suspects fired weapons into this line of people. 18-year-old Leslie Harbin Jr. was pronounced deceased at the scene. His mother, 33-year-old Antoinette Chillers, and 29-year-old Reza Valdez were taken to the hospital where they were pronounced deceased from their injuries. All three of these victims died from gunshot wounds. Immediately after the shooting, the three shooters fled on foot. They got into a vehicle and they fled the scene. This happened despite that there were marked LMPD vehicles next door at a business where they were eating lunch. Officers were then Right, she.

Metro, 30 seconds, please.

And I'm okay with these.

All right, I'm going to start.

Good afternoon.

The time is 4.04 p.m. This is the regularly scheduled meeting of the Public Safety Committee. I'm your chair, Councilman Dan Sime, and I'm joined by my vice chair, Councilwoman Tammy Hawkins. Today we have the following committee members in attendance. It is Jonathan Joseph, Kevin Bratcher, Betsy Rui, Andrew Owen. And virtually, we have Marcus Winkler, Scott Reed, Shamika Parrish-Wright, and Jenny Mulvey-Woolridge. Clerk, will you please read the virtual meeting language?

This meeting's being held pursuant to KRS 61.826 and Council Rule 5A, read in full.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. We have one item on the agenda. Madam Clerk, please read item number one into the record.

Item one, an ordinance enacting a new chapter of Title 11 of the Louisville Metro Code of Ordinance relating to in-person security at the late night businesses. Read in full.

Thank you. Do we have a motion to return? Motion to return to the table.

Motion to return to the table.

Then probably moved and seconded. The sponsor of the ordinance, Councilwoman Hawkins. Do we have to vote to return it to? Okay, we're gonna have to vote to return this to the table.

Is that a?

It's a roll call vote.

A voice vote to return to the table. All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Against, aye. The ayes have it. So we're back to the table, and Councilwoman Hawkins, you have the floor. Thank you, Chair.

First I wanna say, I wanna give my colleague an opportunity to go ahead and make this amendment. Anybody that has had any concerns, I've worked really long on this, as we know that we've had a lot of balance in our, not only just our communities, but the entire city. um i've worked diligently on this i work with restaurant bars my colleagues and hopefully today we can go ahead and get this passed with um another new amendment which was a great amendment that i missed that's why it is so important to um for everyone to kind of look at it you know in a different set of lenses. So I missed something. My colleague picked it up. Hopefully she'll be a co-sponsor. That's Councilwoman Jenny Mori-Warridge. I wanna go ahead and give her the floor and the opportunity.

Yep, thank you. So on page three. Hold on, Jenny, hold on.

Oh, okay. Yes. Okay, all right. Okay, so now I would like to make an amendment to put my ordinance on the floor.

Second.

You have the floor, Jeannie.

Oh, thank you. So page three under the definitions, the persistent illegal activity property, it states the excluding hotels and motels. And then a few sentences down, it says, or any hotel or motel or law enforcement officers on at least five occasions in any 12-month period. So to me, it was a little confusing on if hotels and motels were included or if they weren't. So I would like to make an amendment under This language, and I can send it over to the county attorney, but persistent illegal activity property, any premises or property meeting one of the following criteria. One, properties other than hotels and motels where law enforcement officers have conducted an enforcement action on more than one occasion. with any 12-month period or two, hotels and motels where law enforcement officers have conducted an enforcement action on at least five occasions within any 12-month period. For purposes of this definition, each occurrence with a violation listed below shall initiate a new 12-month period for determining whether The applicable threshold has been met. The enforcement actions must relate to one or more of the following violations. And at that point, pick back up where the ordinance has left off. Any questions?

So we do need a motion to amend.

I'll make a motion to amend.

Properly amended.

Looks like Marcus has his hand up.

Okay, we're going to have a discussion on the amendment or the entirety? You're discussing both amendments right now. Okay, we're going to discuss them both. So we're going to open it up. And who is EQ?

Marcus had his hand up.

Councilman Bratcher, you have the floor, sir.

I'm probably sounding like a broken record here, but I go to documents and I don't know which one we're looking at. Is it always the top one we're looking at? Okay. So these others are dates then.

Okay. Hey, you know what? I see dates there. Okay.

All right, so let's take 0280-25, proposed CABS 072226. That is the current law or the amended law or what we're talking about?

CHRISTIE WOODARD- The item that you just named is the proposed amendment by substitution. to the existing law. So the things that are underlined and, uh, in that document that you just named are additions to the current law and things that are stricken are removed from current law.

So the document at the top that was put in today or the 26th, 22nd, the top document is what council woman, uh,

woolridge is asking us to look at okay that's all i needed thank you councilman winkler please yeah thank you i was just going to ask councilman ward for just sort of the practical layman's explanation of of your amendment if you don't mind

Yeah, so, and I apologize if I didn't explain it well in the beginning. So if you look at what's the current verbiage is, it says any premises or property excluding hotels and motels, and then goes into where in law enforcement officers on more than one occasion within 12 months and talks about any area or any uh facility premise or property that has had a law enforcement um issue and then it says or any hotel or motel where law enforcement officers have gone to within the fat within five occurrences so to me it was confusing because it says excluding hotels and motels and then it shows including and so i separated those out within the amendment

Are you comfortable with that, Councilman Winkler?

Yes, I'm good with Councilwoman Woolrich's amendment. When we finish voting on the amendment, I do have a comment on the, or a question about the ordinance as a whole.

So we're gonna, first thing we're gonna do is take a voice vote on Councilwoman Mulvey-Woolridge's motion to amend. This will be a voice vote. All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? The ayes have it. So we now have the amended version. Okay, and so the Councilwoman Hawkins' amendment by substitution is before us in the entirety, and we'll take a voice vote on that. All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

All in favor? Aye. All against? The ayes have it. Is there any further discussion on the floor? And I think Councilman Winkler, you do have the floor, sir.

Thank you. And I want to direct my question maybe to the county attorney. Just again, I want to walk through this in practical applications for, you know, businesses that operate late at night like, you know, because I understand what we're trying to do here. But my concern is, you know, a gas station, a Waffle House, you know, other sorts of sorts of actors. So they would be required to have security when there's been a law enforcement action. within the last year, correct?

This is Alice Lyon, Assistant County Attorney. In the committee amendment by substitution that's before you, the requirement for onsite security comes after a business has been cited. So first there would be enforcement at that premises of some of the named nuisance criminal activity. They'd have to have had enforcement action twice in a year's period before they would get a notice that they were a persistent illegal activity property. After that, code enforcement would determine whether it would stay at the notice stage or whether it would be cited. And if it's cited, that's when Council Member Hawkins' security requirements would kick in.

And I guess I want to make sure that it is the business itself has been cited, right? Not someone on the property was cited.

In the persistent illegal activity property ordinance as it exists now, the owner of the property gets the citation. Okay.

Can you clarify that? I'm not sure I quite follow that relative to my question.

So when code enforcement issues a notice or a citation, either one, because of this persistent illegal activity at that site, it's issued to the named owner of that property.

Correct. But the notice has to be for the persistent activity, right? If activity happens on my property, right, that is, like, Who knows, right? I have a gas station, right? Two people get in the fight at the gas pump, right? Citation does not count towards this.

The listed criminal activity includes assault, so if it rose to that level and someone that was part of the fight was arrested for that or had a criminal citation issued, an incident report was issued, that would be one of the qualifying criminal activities. And those qualifying criminal activities have to happen twice in a 12-month period before code enforcement starts looking at the pattern.

Yeah. Cause that goes back to my question about who is cited, right? Cause I think that's a different answer than you gave the first time, which is code sites, the business. I mean, and again, I just want to be my hesitation here, right. Is unrelated actions, um, having a negative consequence here, right? And and that that's really my concern. And so it just need to contemplate that a little bit and get comfortable with that piece.

I want to point out that the word citation is being used in two contexts here. There is a criminal citation to the people who are fighting in the parking lot in your example. That's similar to an arrest, like a ticket from a police officer. But then we're also using the word citation to describe what code enforcement would do after a location had several incidents happen that fit this persistent illegal activity definition. So there's a code enforcement citation, but that's separate from the criminal activity that might have a criminal citation up front.

But that secondary citation occurs as a result of the first citation, theoretically, right?

Yes.

Because we're saying there's two incidents, right? So let's say there's a fight and there's two parties who are charged. Is that one incident or two incidents?

If there's... Code enforcement would make the determination, but in theory, that counts as two.

Yeah, that's sort of what I'm worried about here, right? Because I think, again, it is clear what we're trying to do, right? And perhaps it's if there is, you know, discretion with a code officer, right? you know, is it a persistent nuisance or did something happen one time, right? Two or three people were arrested, right? But it really is one event. It's not two events. It's not three events. It's not 11 of it. It's one event, right? It happened to take place on my property, really totally independent of it being, I mean, You know, we had several years ago, there was somebody that was killed in my district. It was a domestic violence issue. They were driving on the interstate. They got in a fight on the interstate. They veered off the interstate into the parking lot of a gas station, right? And that's sort of where the end result happened. But, like... that business isn't necessarily unsafe. It's a terrible incident, obviously, and then unfortunate that they chose that exit to pull off on. I don't think that it would be reasonable to then say, okay, this is an unsafe business because this incident terminated in their parking lot. That to me is very different from, I have an enterprise that persistently attracts this kind of activity.

Councilwoman Hawkins, did you want to address this?

Yes, definitely. Thanks, Marcus. I've not heard from you one time about this. We've not talked, I called you just to make sure over the break to see if you had any questions. But I'll try to clear that up. This has already been heard. As of right now and today, whether it's in Prospect, whether if it's in the West End, whether if they're good actors, bad actors, code enforcement can come right in if an incident happens one time in a business. they're able to come right in and shut them down. With no layer of protection, it is all to the discretion of codes. If ABC comes in and there's been a really bad fight, something happens, ABC can shut them down right then and there until further investigation. So even without any of this, ABC codes can go right in and shut a place down. It doesn't matter if they're good actors, doesn't matter what part of town it's in. If me and someone get into an altercation and I pull out a gun, it is not the business's fault. But at that particular time, ABC, depending if alcohol is involved or codes can come in to consider it as a nuisance to shut it down, they have consistently, either one of the two, shut businesses down until further investigation. Whether that is for one day, for five days, they will shut a business down to give them the opportunity to investigate right um i think this right here anything can happen i do believe at club cedar there was a guy that got killed inside the club the club didn't have anything to do with that somebody hid the gun in the club you know earlier part of that day after, you know, codes and ABC investigated. So I think it's just the opportunity to get them and it is to their discretion. There is no language anywhere that says codes don't have the right to come in and identify a business as a nuisance, even if it's an incident that happens one time. So when I looked at it, I thought, well, let's at least look out for some of those gas stations, waffle houses. You know, in today's time, we know there's been a lot going on. You know, it's crime everywhere. It is violence everywhere. And you can be the best actor in the world. You can be a great business actor. And then one day, you know, somebody can pull up at your gas station and blow, you know, we're going to say blow somebody's family member's lights out. Well, what codes have been doing, they just don't want the business to open right back up the next day. That's really disrespectful to somebody's family, right? So they just take that time just to be able to look at the video surveillance, be able to talk to both families, and just kind of navigate what happened. When a business is open from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m., a lot can go on during those times. And to me, we need to find some type of way to protect not only just the business owners, right? I'm a business owner myself, and as much as I love to make money, I still wanna be able to have good employees that wanna come to work and feel safe, right? So in the event that if my business becomes a nuisance and a hangout, for the public, because as we know, with these takeovers, Bardstown Road, they was forced to close down to two in the morning. Some of these businesses, they're kind of being forced and negotiated to close down after two when you have these takeovers that are coming to their businesses. Bardstown Road didn't ask for that. but now they being asked to shut down at two o'clock, right? Well, if I'm a business owner, I am going to protect my business by all means, right? But let's not wait until, you know, the takeover, the youth or anybody comes in or just somebody, a random person creates balance at somebody's business. We understand it's not the business, it's phone. But as a business owner, I'm going to do everything that I can to protect my investments. So, you know, really and truly, I'm going to already do this without it being law if I really want to protect my business in the event that there's a team takeover or violence or anything like that because people's gonna look at it from a public perspective as oh no somebody got killed there oh no did you hear about the lady who got shot in the head at that gas station over there You know, versus somebody else saying, well, you know, now they do have police there at night. You know, a lot of the businesses I'm going to use for an example, Waffle House. Waffle House off Cameron Road, you know, that's in my district, they used to be open 24 hours. You know, with so much going on today, they're not open 24 hours on the inside. You know, so they just opened up their window now. You know, so they did what they needed to do to protect not only their business, but also to protect, you know, their employees. So it's just not, this is, you know, a two or three fold the public, your employees and the business. This just isn't about the the business owners. This is about the community, right? I know as a business owner, if I want to continue to get business, I know it needs to be safe. and from two in the morning you know there's really not too many businesses that this is gonna affect after two in the morning so hopefully you know i can get everybody's support um you know everybody kind of know what we're dealing with nowadays um and uh i'm trying to do everything that i possibly can do to reduce the violence, have security, police, in the event if a business or anywhere becomes a place where a lot of people go or anybody goes where they feel like violence can happen. So hopefully I can get your support. I understand your concerns. I'm a business owner. But we got to start somewhere. Thank you.

Councilman Winkler, are you good? Okay. Next in queue would be Councilman Bratcher.

Oh, I have so many questions that I'm going to pass. Councilman Owen, please.

Thank you, Chair. I'm not suggesting a change here. I just wanted to provide just a little bit of anecdotal evidence. I own a building here in town that has Dollar Tree as a tenant. And they're a net lease tenant, and so they're required to do everything at the building. I'm not required to do anything as the property owner. And so they're required for example in this case to maintain the parking lot in a clean manner. And they have a hard time doing that. And so a lot of times I'll get a codes and regs citation sent to me as the property owner. when I am not really responsible for doing that. And so I have to then go chase down the Dollar Tree leadership in Virginia to try to get them to do something about it, which is really hard to do. In this case, and I think along the lines of a Waffle House, because that's a national retailer, you might have some similar situations where it might be a little bit hard to get the attention for the owner of the property who ends up getting the notice here because that's and that's the person that's easiest to find frankly and that's why i'm not suggesting a change but i'm just anecdotally suggesting that there might be some issue in connecting the dots between the property owner and the person or the entity that actually runs the Waffle House, for example. Again, I'm not really suggesting a change. I just wanted to provide a little bit of anecdotal evidence there that sometimes connecting those dots is a little bit harder than it seems. So that's all.

Next in queue would be Councilman Reed, please.

understand something so if there's an incident in the establishment two people get in a fight um the owner of the establishment is cited irrespective of the fact that it's the individuals that are in the fight or maybe different individuals on a different day or different month heads up to another incident. It's still the owner of the establishment, not necessarily the people that are being cited. Is that correct? Okay.

Council Member Reed, is your question directed to me as the Assistant County Attorney?

It's directed to anyone. Please answer, yes.

In the existing Persistent Illegal Activity Ordinance, in section 149.05C, A code enforcement officer determines if the activity that's happened at that property rises to their level of concern. The ordinance asks them to determine if the property is operated in a way that encourages criminal activity. So between the writing of an arrest incident report or between whatever crime happened at that site and code enforcement getting involved in determining whether it's persistent illegal activity, there's a layer of discretion that the code enforcement officers and department go through.

In the definition section of

this relevant range, it's LMC 14902. Enforcement action is defined as incident report, arrest, referral for prosecution. So it would be one of those types of enforcement from law enforcement. And then the types of crimes are listed in another section where it defines persistent illegal activity. And there are say a dozen, types of crimes that are listed there so first they determine if it was the right kind of law enforcement action and then if it was the listed type of criminal activity and then there'd be that discretionary review to see if they thought the property was operated in a way that encourages activity and that's all in the existing uh lmco chapter 149

In theory, a business owner can be doing everything by the book for the consumer, for the citizen, for the actor.

Councilman Reed, we can't hear you. We cannot hear you.

I'll pass.

Councilwoman Hawkins wanted to address that.

Well, just a little bit. I definitely understand what you're saying. Nowhere in here that I see as a fight, and there's been several fights in several locations, a little bit everywhere, and nobody has gotten cited. I know several business owners, and club owners, it looks like prostitution, human trafficking, number two, sexual offenses, gambling, sale or use of alcohol, misdemeanor or felony possession, trafficking, murder, assault, theft, drug paraphernalia, these are already illegal things. Unlicensed massage therapy, selling and smoking retail. So if these things are going on in a person's business after hours, these are things that are against the law anyway. So the owner is responsible for things that are going on inside their businesses. None of these things that I have on here should be going on inside a business at two in the morning. I'm gonna use this for an example. There was a liquor store that just got shut down, not because nothing happened inside the liquor store, but because there was some illegal gambling in the back. after 2 a.m. in the morning. So they shut the liquor store down. The liquor store was attached. It was in the back room of where they gambled at. So they shut it down. The liquor store was fully closed, but it happened on the premises of the liquor store business. This wasn't even implemented, but it was illegal gambling. So what I'm saying is codes and ABC, they're already doing this. Most of this was already here. So hopefully that answered your question.

Before we go any further, council members Herndon and Chappell have joined us. Jenny Mulvey-Walridge is in the queue, please.

Thank you.

And again, I want to say to Councilwoman Hawkins, thank you for the effort you put into this and the changes that have been made from where we were and taking all the considerations and conversations into play along with just the language of the fact that it's not an all or nothing. For example, we talked about the up to or more than five or one, but it's not just a, if it's one, you're done. The questions, and we talked about this yesterday, Ms. Hawkins, but the question in regards to if codes enforcement is ready for this, I don't know that it's going to take any more work, because like you said, they're already doing this, but I know that we did have the budget cut recently and they had layoffs. So the question around if they're ready for this amount of work that may come from this or not. I'm not sure if they're in chambers or not to answer that or if you may have had conversations with them. Again, I know we kind of hit on that a little yesterday, but we couldn't talk along with other meetings that were in play. But that was the question that I had. Okay.

Well, it has a lot to do with if alcohol is involved, right? So if alcohol is involved, then they kind of lean on ABC. Codes and ABC, they kind of work hand in hand. But, I mean, Brad's not had a concern with it, and Donald Robinson hasn't either. They're already doing this. Thank you.

Yeah, and I hear they're already doing it. I've also talked to someone from ABC, and the fact that the opportunity that if they have an incident, that there's something that they can come back and quickly say, hey, you either need security or there's this other incident or potential to be shut down. And I understand, again, like the county attorney said, there's already things that are in play in law, whether they be enforced or not. But again, I think my only question was is if, because within the ordinance codes is the one that would be enforcing this, just to ensure that they have the resources available to ensure that it is enforced, to ensure that if someone were to come back and appeal it, that that process in place. I think from what I read and county attorney correct me if I'm wrong, there's already an appeals process that's in play. So I think that that is a mute point, but I'll let you address that question if there's already resources, if there's already a process in play for appeals, et cetera.

Alice Lyon, Assistant County Attorney again. In the existing LMCO 149.07 subsection C, there's an appeals process from the Code Enforcement Board Orders, and then after that step, there's another appeal that can be made to District Court, and that's in subsection E of that section.

Okay, thank you. Just want to make sure we're not recreating any processes and that was under that assumption. Just I didn't want to make an assumption because we know what that does to me. So I appreciate those answers. And again, if I have anything else, then once this moves forward, I can ask any other questions over the next week. Thank you.

Councilwoman Hawkins.

That was a great concern. One thing that I do want to say is that when I talk to codes, a lot of the times people don't, like let's say a club, they don't have the money to obtain a lawyer for a lengthy amount of time. So they work out an agreement with ABC, basically like, let's say, well, you have to have two police officers after 10 p.m., right? So the club violates that. They don't have police after 2 p.m., I mean after 2 a.m., So now ABC comes back in and closes them down, right? So now they get an attorney and now they fighting, right? But if this was already in place, it wouldn't have to be a sad deal. It's already here. ABC or COADS can just come in and just do what they need to do. But ABC is already making arrangements with club owners saying, if you want to stay open past 10 p.m., you have to have two officers. So that is... Go ahead.

Sorry, go ahead. I was going to say, I do remember, and I apologize, I had it on my notes and missed that, that I do remember that we had some businesses that had been shut down by ABCs or by code, but did make arrangements per some of the ordinances and per their agreements that they would bring in to officers in order to open back up. So some of these things that are put into this language are already happening.

Okay, yeah, so I was just saying it wasn't something that was even in language, but it is something that ABC and CODES was already working with those businesses, giving them a series of opportunities to, If they did have a violation, 26th Street's really dark, or if they did have some fines, they say, hey, lighten up the corner. If we get proof that you've lit the corner up or that you've added more cameras, we'll work. So they already have something. that they kind of work with, but there was nothing here in place. So this just also gives them something just in the event that if it's an appeal or whatever, that they have something they can go off of.

Thank you.

Next in queue is Councilwoman Jennifer Chappell, please.

Thank you, Chair. And thank you, I know that there's a lot of hard work that's gone into this and what we have us here before is absolutely different than what was presented initially. And so, again, I wanna acknowledge the work that went into this and that you're not doing this if there was not a problem existing. And so I understand what this is trying to tackle. I have a few questions. I might have to get back into the queue, but to understand how this happens, LMPD would have to create some sort of way to alert code enforcement that activity has happened on the property to flag a citation from codes, is that correct?

That process is in the existing ordinance now in one of the earlier sections. that law enforcement flags the list of criminal activity that Council Member Hawkins named, the prostitution offenses, gambling, et cetera. When those are flagged, there's a notice goes to code enforcement when you've reached the multiple incidents for those crimes. And that's in the existing code.

Is it in real time that they get those notifications?

That's not part of the ordinance.

Who oversees it?

Does it go to a general inbox? Who decides what gets answered and what code enforcement officer's area it goes into?

I think you'd need to bring the administration, you know, those administrative departments here to get that level of detail. But the ordinance provides that they talk to each other in existing language.

Okay. And then codes then cites the business. LMPD alerts codes, codes goes and looks at the business and then codes gives a warning or a citation, right?

It's in the ordinance, it's called a notice.

Okay, so they get a notice. Our code enforcement currently only works first shift. We recently saw a 21 person decrease in that department. They're already overworked with cases. And I worry that this is adding to not only their capacity, but the capacity of the Code Enforcement Board, which is a volunteer board that's already pretty heavily stacked. They deal with everything from property violations to animal control issues. It's pretty far ranging. So I have a question about capacity, but also if we're talking about a first shift department within Louisville Metro, citing businesses that might only be open from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m., when are they expected to make contact with that owner, or have we worked with that department or put it into this legislation to mandate code enforcement officers that work varied shifts to accomplish the goals of this ordinance?

Vice Chair Hawkins?

Thank you. Good question. One, I wanna make this clear. Just because people get arrested does not mean codes will issue a citation, okay? I wanna say that. Who and how the owner gets cited is already law. I'm not recreating that, okay? That's already in there. This ordinance does not change or decide who or how businesses even get cited. And I just got to reiterate this. This proposed ordinance is not defining who or how businesses are cited. That's already in here, right? So when you're dealing with codes, they never go into the next day anyway. They have to investigate. So once, like... Let's say the police gets there, right? When LMPD gets there, you know, they contact codes. Nine times out of ten, codes or ABC, if something happens after two in the morning, they don't get contact to the owner until in the morning anyway. So none of this is happening until 2 a.m. to 6 a.m., right? I'm going to use this for an example.

2 a.m. to 5 a.m. Well, 5 a.m.

Either way it goes, it's still really considered like the next day, right? We don't have a second shift or a third shift, but it's the nature of the beast, right? We still got crime going on at two in the morning, right? We still have things going on whether they get cited at, two in the morning or whether they get sighted at eight in the morning. CODES is still gonna get up that next morning or ABC is gonna get up that next morning, investigate, get the folder on what happened and take action, even if it's the next morning. Things have been going on. There's been several incidents. The incident that, again, that happened at the liquor store of King Run, that was after 2 in the morning. Coles didn't get there until 8 in the morning. The shooting happened at maybe 3, somewhere around there. It is several incidents that occur, and we don't get to handle it until the next day. You know, which means that maybe we should think about next year, you know, if we want to worry about our codes department being overworked, maybe we should, or ABC or whoever it is, maybe we should, you know, create a task force. I know that there's a task force for Bardstown Road. Maybe the task force should be for, from two to five all over the city, but that would just be LMPD, right? So maybe, you know, we should have a task force for this, you know, with codes or something. But I don't think that they didn't have a problem with funding LMPD from two to five. four or five in the morning for Barnstown Road. And those businesses have to shut down at two in the morning. Most of those businesses are forced to shut down. And this was even before this. And Bardstown Road has been around for years. And for those businesses to have to shut down because a group of people want to go target that area, we'll wait until they come to New Lou. Or wait until they come, you know, to Baxter Avenue somewhere. Right? Something has to be in place. It doesn't matter what time that it's dealt with. As long as it gets dealt with. It's just how I'm looking at it. It's just a start for me. But I definitely understand your concern.

Sure, and I know this body has no problem giving money to LMPD. I guess I'm just trying to understand our other departments, such as codes. I'm also, and again, this went from a five-page document to a 13-page document, so there is quite a bit different about it, so sorry for not being as learned on it as I should be. I do have those concerns and also having concerns about these things and having good players that are open until 4 a.m. in my community, which are community spaces that do act as safe haven spaces that are wonderful contributors to our community. I really have to look at this and try to figure out how that impacts them because it's blanketing and a good law should apply to everyone, not just some. And so that's why I have a lot of pause about this. And if these things are already happening, I wish that we would have had, I know that the public can't see, but there's absolutely no one in this room to speak to this, whether it's from code enforcement, code enforcement board, LMPD, it would have been really wonderful to have them here. um and then they could also provide some data and insight into the enforceability the handoff the nature of um you know shifts that would be really great so in the i'll switch gears here in this legislation um it requires at least one security guard between 2 10 p.m or 2 a.m. to 5 a.m. if they're caught in violation? And is it in perpetuity? Because I did not see any sort of expiration. So you violate and you're forever an offender and forever required to have security.

Thank you. No, that's not the case. And also, if you look, this is after a series of violations that you would be required to have security there. So this isn't one and done, right? This is basically after you've already been considered a nuisance. And I would think as a business owner, and I know several business owners One of them is Fred in your district. He's a great actor. And in the event, if somebody acts a fool, he's going to get security, right? You know, and if Fred's listening, hey, Fred. So I pretty much in everybody's neighborhood or businesses, if they're good actors, they're good actors. They're going to remain good actors. And none of this is going to affect them. But in the event that if they're bad actors and they got gambling going on and murders happening in their businesses, then that's when we take a look at them. And we should be doing that anyway. So that, hopefully that answered your question.

Sure, and I'll get back into the queue, but just for clarification on that one, it looks like the penalty would be between possibly 90 days of that requirement to have security to up to one year, is that correct?

Yes, after a series of, right, things that happen. Let's say you have three murders in your, at a business, yeah. They better be coming to protect the business or you just have someone get shot or, you know, people feel like they can come to your business because you don't get security and they can get away with doing whatever they want to. Then at that point, yeah, I feel like somebody should step in and just say, hey, if you don't know that you should be having security, then we're going to have to make you have security if a series of things happen, right? And like right now, codes ABC, and I'm sure you know this, codes can come right in because there's a nuisance ordinance that if codes come in right now, codes can shut any business down the same day until further investigation without this. They can do that. And... until, you know, ABC gets ready to say, well, hey, you're going to do this, this, this, this, and this, and then we'll consider you opening back up.

I think a flow chart would have been a great accompaniment to this legislation.

Well, unfortunately, I talked to Brad. You know, he's with his father right now. So, sorry, you know. You know, I'm going to allow him to spend some time with his dad. But he didn't have a problem with it. So I'm pretty sure if he did, him and I have a great relationship. He would address it. And I met with Phil Crow and Donald Robinson. They didn't have a problem with it. The only issue that they had at first was who was going to handle it. But they have to work together in the event that if alcohol is involved, then it includes ABC. But either one of those entities, no matter what's going on, don't have second or third shift. So it just would be LMPD. Then once, even if ABC is not working or they don't have second shift, they will get up the next day and Try to handle it. So I ask that question as well.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Rui, please.

Thank you, I will be brief first of all. Thank you, Councillor Hawkins for taking this on and taking so much time to, I've watched this evolve from something that was very simple and straightforward to something that's much more nuanced. And I can tell you've talked to many stakeholders, I'm sure you haven't gotten to all of them, but you've done what to me looks like a very good job with a complicated subject. And I'm on here as a co-sponsor because we had a shooting in a parking lot outside an event facility and we couldn't figure out how to force them to have security. Because everything spilled out and they're after hours and this answers the need that we saw at that time. So thank you for doing it. I'm good.

Councilwoman Chappell, please. Your last in queue.

I don't have to be. I'm just wondering if, this is kind of odd, but if Louisville Metro is requiring a security guard from the business, could Louisville Metro have any liability if future incidents were to occur involving that security guard?

Repeat that again.

held liable if by requirement we said a business had to have them but they were involved in a future incident, would Louisville Metro be in any way held liable for that activity?

What do you mean if they was involved in a future incident? so if the club owner is responsible for um security to protect their business they would have to like hire somebody with the rest powers whether that's a sheriff or lmpd or you know i don't know i know brad when he's been making negotiations with the different um Businesses, I do know that he's been requiring them to have police officers too. If they've been a bad actor or things like any of these things has occurred, he's been requiring them to have officers at 10 p.m. And the business was like, I just cannot afford, it's just easier for me just to shut down at 10, but so much was happening you know, outside. of that business that even the business owner couldn't control. It was like Derby. And I kept on begging for LMPD to go to 26th Street. And they just would not go down there because it was like Derby on that strip. So the club owner just said, well, I'll just shut down because I can't control the noise. I can't control, you know, the people if somebody gets shot outside, right? So, you know, I'll just close, you know, but when an incident happened on the inside, He was already having issues outside. Brad said, you have to have two officers. And you will be surprised. There is several officers. They find officers that work overtime. That overtime pay is very expensive. So you find officers definitely that will work that. I've not had what people complain about is the price. It's not that they not there.

Could we get County Attorney Lyon to answer that question? I think I know the answer whether Metro would have liability in that situation, but can you weigh in on that for us, please?

I want to start by saying that I... There may be scenarios. We can't play what ifs here, but I think this would be the equivalent of any enforcement action that Metro takes. So anytime that you require a permit, anytime you require that you meet a certain bar before you can do X, Y, Z. it would follow the same framework. So I doubt there'd be a liability arising directly from the requirement. I don't know what scenarios you're cooking at the moment, but in the general government enforces its own ordinances, there wouldn't be a liability in that sense.

Thank you.

And I think these will be off-duty the same way they wouldn't be working. They'd be off-duty. They'd be getting paid from the business. Is that what you're asking?

Oh, no. I wasn't talking about specifically LMPD. No. I'll just say that beyond the messy bureaucracy of this legislation, the concerns I have with capacity and also unintended consequences that I fear, I just don't feel like it's something that I could support. I'm not on this committee, so I won't be voting on it regardless, so it's not up to me. But I just really had to come in here, especially since we've been working so much on looking to alternatives to creating safer environments, and if it is cost prohibitive for people to have security, armed security, or off-duty LMPD officers, or a law enforcement officer with a background, a licensure of five years, whatever. I wish that we would look at ways that we could help those businesses to provide security without requiring such cost prohibitive measures. One of those ways would be creating a licensure for an unarmed security officer. That would certainly lower the cost, create a broader market instead of a little monopoly on security and hopefully have more people that are trained in skills of de-escalation and such. But until this body is willing to consider that and other ways that we can keep Louisville Metro folks safe without enforcing laws that I feel like aren't the best for the constituents that I represent. I don't think that I can bring myself to support this, but I appreciate the efforts, thank you.

And I'm sorry that you think the legislation is messy, because for you to use that word messy, you know, To me, it's definitely not messy. It would be messy if I wouldn't be trying to do something that would protect not only the employees of these businesses, but the people that go into these businesses. And I would definitely think after four or five of any of these things that are going on in someone's business, that the ordinance would even be called messy. You know? I felt like it was a little disrespectful. Maybe if it had Christopher's law at the top of it, it wouldn't be disrespectful to you. But you and I both, you know, we're club whores, right? We like to go outside. We're both outside. But when we go outside, we want to be safe, right? But just because it doesn't have... to your tasting, right? It shouldn't be called messy, right? I would never call your legislation messy, right? This is gonna protect somebody, whether you like it or whether you don't, right? And when you wanna protect your constituents, right, and your business owners, you do what you need to do, right? not only just for the business owners, but also for the people that attend those businesses and the employees that work in that space, right? So a messy is definitely something that this is not. I spent a lot of time on this, and not only just that, you've not contacted me one time about this messy legislation.

Thank you. There's no more speakers in the queue.

any more additional comments i i would like to make a comment mr chair okay you may Thank you. I've just been listening. I hear a lot of things that I agree with. As far as unintended consequences, I do think about the safety. I do love a nightlife, and I understand that. But I'm thinking about the businesses and how this will impact them and just the examples that we're giving here. I know the county attorney said we can't do what if, but there are a lot of What if we see what's happened in the Highlands? We see what's going on with our entertainment districts. And I think that some of those things need to play out before we institute this kind of legislation, because there's just still some unknowns with the with the hours and with the, you know, There's a lot going on with the police and overtime, and I'm just really concerned about the unintended consequences and the equity and enforcement and the discretion of code enforcement officers and how will they be trained to deal with this. As somebody who did actually work as a security officer with a private investigator's license, I do understand a lot about security. But the main thing about security is that it's a deterrence. I mean, you can have police officers there and people still commit crimes or do things. And so nothing stops anybody from walking into there right now and doing whatever they want to do. But I do think this is a great effort as a councilwoman who wants to do something about these growing issues in different parts of our city. I do think it's important and I commend the efforts to that. I just can't wholeheartedly support this legislation because of the unintended consequences that I see from being in the business community, understanding what I understand about security and how these things might play out. I'm really, really concerned. I do think we have enough in place to deal with this, and we need to look at ways to improve and ways to deal with the community protection in different ways, the training, the conflict resolution, making sure that the security officers are able to be trained. We have licensure processes. There's a lot that we've been trying to do over the few years that I think we could work on. i do commend the efforts this is nothing against what's happened we have talked about it i still have the same concerns around equity and enforcement but i but but don't be discouraged if everyone doesn't agree that's why we're in this committee but that's i just wanted to explain why i'll be a no this ordinance requires a roll call vote clerk would you please open the rolls voting is open

Council Member Parrish-Wright? No. Council Member Reid?

Yes.

Council Member Winkler?

Yes.

Council Member Mover-Worwich? Yes. Voting's closing. Chair, you have nine yes votes and one no.

Thank you, Clerk. This measure will be sent to Old Business. Our next regular committee meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, August 5 at 4 p.m. If there's no other matters, this committee stands adjourned.

Absolutely nothing at all or to institutionalize that person for life. We sent people away oftentimes never to be seen or heard from again who were dealing with things that