Stop bill, protect state

A new Arkansas bill, SB492, would designate so-called “entertainment districts” across the state in cities with clusters of restaurants, bars, and venues such as cinemas. Within these areas, public drinking would be allowed.

This is but the latest in a long line of ill-conceived projects to “revitalize” areas and promote “culture.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Culture is organic, created when residents move in and shape an area. True revitalization means attracting enterprising young families with children. Alcohol leads more often to de-vitalization.

Public drinking has a snowball effect. When an area has drunken people milling about at all hours of the day, other crime follows. Entertainment districts have demonstrable problems with alcohol-related crime, from fighting and sexual and domestic violence to DUI. As neighborhoods begin to appear unregulated, with public urination and loud revelry, transients are attracted and drugs and prostitution may follow. Police departments and residents bear the burden.

Who benefits if we all lose? These so-called entertainment districts could be just the first step in Arkansas toward what cities on the West Coast have already embraced, from recreational marijuana to “safe injection sites” for addicts. Despair runs roughshod over these places, with feces, spent needles and condoms, and dying Americans littering the streets as refuse.

Who do we want to be? Is a city just a nihilistic repository for the wasted, or is it something more, a nest where families and children can thrive? Stop this bill and preserve our state. NEIL KUMAR

Bentonville