Agenda Item 3AAGENDA ITEM # 3A
JANUARY 24, 2011
January 18, 2011
MEMORANDUM
TO: The Honorable Mayor
and Members of the City Commission
FROM: Ji
City Manager
SUBJECT: Follow -up Report
Voo Swar Lounge Since the last meeting, a City Commissioner has asked if adequate parking
exists for the Voo Swar Lounge. Because of the zoning history related to the establishment, they
have never been required to submit a parking plan to the City. Consequently, Erika Hall used an
aerial photograph to lay out parking spaces on the property so as to arrive at an answer to the
question. A copy of her drawing is attached. Her best estimate of parking is that 34 places could
be obtained on the property. A restaurant with 150 seats would be required to have 38 parking
places.
Second, a number of statements were made by the public concerning the police response to the
problems at the Voo Swar Lounge in 2010 that require some follow -up. A written report from
Chief Classey on these is also attached.
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AGENDA ITEM # 3A
JANUARY 24, 2011
To: Jim Hanson
From: Mike Classey/O t'
Re: Voo Swar
POLICE DEPARTMENT
850 SEMINOLE ROAD
ATLANTIC BEACH, FLORIDA 32233 -5445
TELEPHONE: (904) 247 -5859
FAX: (904) 247 -5867
Web Site: www.coab.us
January 14, 2011
This is to follow up on the initial report regarding the above and to provide a response
and further details on some of the issues discussed at the January 10, 2011
Commission meeting.
As indicated in the original staff report, the police have responded to the Voo Swar more
than 90 times in 2010. A breakdown of the incident types was distributed at the meeting.
Fourteen of those calls involved a dispute, fight or assault. The largest number of
recorded calls fall under the category of property checks and accounted for 55 of the
incidents.
Property checks may be in response to a call by a citizen, but most are self initiated by
the officer. Officers patrolling the area during the late night and early morning hours had
been observing large crowds congregated in and around the Voo Swar. In response to
previous dispatched calls and their own personal observations, the officers began
proactively checking the property and logging out on an incident. This was recorded in
Computer Aided Dispatch system as a "property check ".
Admittedly, this did increase the number of documented calls to the location, which was
discussed and acknowledged at the meeting. However, I believe it is an important
illustration to demonstrate the level of concern our police officers have for this
establishment. Whenever an officer becomes aware of an ongoing problem anywhere in
our city, we encourage them to take proactive steps to address it in anticipation of the
resulting improvements.
The officers' actions were prompted by a desire to prevent and reduce the number of
crimes and incidents that occurred. It is obviously preferred to keep people safe through
the prevention of crime rather than by responding to it and investigating it after the fact.
There is no way to ascertain how many more crimes would have occurred had the
officers not been already on scene.
A second area of discussion at the meeting concerned incidents at the Voo Swar versus
problems in the surrounding area. The call report that was distributed only contained
AGENDA ITEM # 3A
JANUARY 24, 2011
calls at the Voo Swar itself. No other calls from the immediate neighborhood were
included in the report. With that being said, Robert Street does have challenges with
serious violent crimes as well as drug sales and usage. For example, there was a
stabbing incident on Christmas Eve which also involved the discharge of firearm that
occurred just about 100 feet from the Voo Swar. Similarly, there was a residence where
8 people were arrested earlier in 2010 for drug sales and /or possession. Neither of
these incidents or others like them were included in the submitted call report.
Another statement was made at the meeting that claimed that people had to call the
Atlantic Beach Police Department 4 or 5 times before an officer would come. There was
no specific information provided on when this was alleged to have occurred. Therefore,
it was not possible to conduct any investigation on a particular incident. However, an
analysis was conducted on all the dispatched calls for service at the Voo Swar. The
average response time for 2010 was 2 minutes 37 seconds
Although many of the calls were not emergency calls, they were still included in the
calculation. This is an excellent response time and is in line with the department's
overall average emergency response time city wide. When a serious incident occurs
such as an assault or battery or for that matter a traffic accident, it is not uncommon for
the police department to receive several calls about it within close proximity of each
other. As soon as the first call is received our dispatcher immediately gathers all the
necessary information, logs the call into the computer system and dispatches an
officer(s) to respond.
In conclusion, the number of self initiated property checks was included in the overall
call report. Their purpose was to reduce crime and protect the Voo Swar patrons and
area residents and were in direct response to the officers' level of concern for potential
problems. Second, only the incidents /calls specifically at the Voo Swar were included in
the report. Finally, although the department may receive multiple calls about a single
incident, the average response time from the first call to the officer arriving at the Voo
Swar was only 2 'h minutes.