Restaurant Watch, the new initiative put forward by Vancouver Police to make gangsta living not so luxe (let them eat foie gras!), has been getting plenty of media play over the last 24 hours. Most of it has been pretty predictable, but this bit in today’s Sun story lifted my brow:
“It’s a purely a preventive measure,” said Trish Holt, manager at the Macaroni Grill on Davie Street.
“We’re working together to take proactive steps against any possible gang violence.”
Violence has never been a problem at her restaurant, Holt said.
Admirable sentiments, yes, but the venerable Macaroni Grill was in fact the scene of a very violent crime this past winter, when a deranged man went on a lady-hitting binge, assaulting three. Nice try, Trish. It’s not your fault that you forgot. It’s the Sun’s (they reported it, after all).
But I digress. While I think almost everyone (save for the dude pictured above) deeply appreciates and respects the desire of the police to keep us all safe, I still can’t help but wonder if deputizing restaurant staff is such a hot idea. To have servers and managers getting into the profiling game by narcing on their guests is a sketchy tightrope that could be fraught with all manner of pitfalls. Like getting it wrong. Or worse, like getting hurt.
Fearing for the safety of guests is understandable, but for as long as I can remember, Vancouver restaurants have never needed a “program” to deal with violence or the potential thereof. Any good restaurant manager would call the cops if they suspected there was a chance that trouble was coming to their room. It’s Management 101.
But that’s beside the point. The thing that really bothers me is the notion that restaurants are part of the problem. Just because there have been several shootings in, outside, or near restaurants in recent memory doesn’t mean it’s symptomatic of a venue-specific epidemic. If it’s really as big an issue as the media has trumpeted then I think we’re in need of a cure that isn’t just tailored for newsprint (as I’m beginning to think that this most surely is).
I also wonder if marketing publicising such a program is all that smart, for now these thugs know who to blame if a cop shows up at their table telling them to scram (I’m no expert, but I assume gangsters aren’t too keen on tattlers). The police say they’ve thought this part through by guaranteeing anonymity, but I’m not so sure. If the establishment has a big “Restaurant Watch” sticker on the door and the police have taken out their megaphone to declare war by proxy through unarmed tray-carrying surrogates, how anonymous is that?
Reaching out to the community is never a bad idea when policing a problem, but seeing the police play footsie with the media like this causes me to question if it’s just a poorly conceived PR pivot away from the fact that they can’t stop gang violence.
In the end, even though small time crooks who don’t know how to hold their cutlery are generally a brain-searing task to deal with, I fear the real grow op ballers who run up fat checks while staying low key will always remain welcome, as if their 25% cash tips on bottles of Cristal weren’t reason enough for most restaurant managers to keep the phone down. Do the police really think the big fish that they need to catch are dining out at Earls, Cactus Club, Moxies, The Macaroni Grill or any of the other restaurants that instantly jumped on board? I hope not, because that’s like putting up a dragnet on the beach to catch deep sea squid.
If VPD superintendent Warren Lemcke was being sincere when he said that he wasn’t “going to tolerate violence from these criminals” in the news release that announced the program, then I suspect he would have come up with a better idea than what will probably end up being remembered as a window-dressing dud of a doozy.
But that’s just my opinion. Your turn to weigh in…
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Feel free to use the comment thread below to expand on your answer.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
If its the same trish I know she’s only been working there for couple months now.
and is it that bad in the restaurant that we need a “gangster” watch?
Maybe a restaurant can take advantage of this take your woman out to a gangster friendly restaurant 6 course dinner and a bottle of dom 600$ we accept cash!
Very well said, Andrew. You nailed it.
I admit I haven’t followed this new ‘program’ by the police force much. But surely if it is a serious program, they should have seminars, training, etc, with everyone in the industry first?
I first heard about it on the news. And are the staff/management of these participating restaurants going to receive special training from the police force? If not it is clearly a farce, and does that make everywhere withouth this sticker a gangster friendly establishment?
and what about “danger pay”?