NEW HAVEN (WTIC News) -- Anticipating large crowds of young people in downtown New Haven for Halloween weekend, city leaders have chosen to deny permits to so-called “juice bars.”
The bars allow underage patrons to attend nightclubs where alcohol is being served nearby to those 21 and older.
Police attribute fights and gun violence on the last two Halloweens to crowds leaving the juice bars. Last year, an innocent bystander, college student Alexa Acevedo, 18, of Norwich, was killed when rival teens fired into the crowd.
Dalon Jett of Derby, 17 at the time of the shooting, is charged with murder.
New Haven city alder Christine Kim says, often, underage juice bar attendees wind up being served alcohol, contributing to rowdy behavior that endangers visitors and residents.
“They market ‘all ages’ events while alcohol ends up reaching kids under 21,” says Kim, “and then they send these kids out at closing time onto our streets.”
“This isn’t nightlife, right, this is profiting from risk to other people’s children and leaving our neighbors and our police and our public works to deal with the consequences and aftermath.”
With testimony from those who’ve experienced the violence in New Haven playing a key role in the debate, state lawmakers this year passed a bill allowing cities and towns to regulate juice bars. New Haven followed with an ordinance restricting them.
Under the new city ordinance, juice bars need a special permit from the city to operate. Mayor Justin Elicker says no such permit will be issued for this holiday weekend.
“We’re going to have thousands of people having fun downtown. We want everyone to come to New Haven and have a good time,” says Elicker. “However, when individuals or some establishments don’t cooperate with us and don’t create that positive atmosphere, it creates problems, and you’ve seen some of those problems in recent years and we’ve had enough of it.”
New Haven police chief David Zannelli says additional patrols will be out all weekend to try and ensure there’s no repeat of the Halloween violence of recent years.
