The Martin Scorsese of Lower Greenville may be out of a gig soon: This morning, Dallas Police Department Deputy Chief Vince Golbeck, commander of the patrol division, tells Unfair Park that for the past month, he's been considering taking camera crews to document the late-night and early-morning doings at city's hotter spots. Which means that possibly as soon as next weekend, the DPD expects to start filming along Lowest Greenville, in downtown Dallas and elsewhere to document wee-small-hour shenanigans for property owners who might not be aware of what's going down at 2 in the a.m.
"When I have meetings with particular property owners and respective club owners and managers, when we talk about different issues affecting public safety and quality of life, we can show it on the flat screen, and it can be a real eye-opener, especially for property owners," Golbeck says. "They often have no clue what's happening."
Golbeck says the DPD's done some videotaping in the past around downtown clubs, among them Blue, and had crews on Greenville Avenue rooftops for this year's St. Patrick's Day shindig. But the department looks to step up its efforts in coming days using crews normally assigned to the academy, whose duties include making training tapes for new recruits. And the chief acknowledges that some of this is being done in response to Avi Adelman's efforts on Greenville Avenue.
"Avi being out there is confrontational," Golbeck says, just two days after Adelman received a citation for misdemeanor assault. "Citizens don't realize he has
the right to video tape, but some find it offensive, and it doesn't
make our job any easier. He's shouldn't be doing something we should be
doing periodically. This is primarily to help me with my dialogue with
the business owners and property owners. ... If we see folks staggering out of a bar, their waitstaff should be
seeing these same individuals, and they should be aware they have a responsibility not to keep serving these people."
Golbeck
expects to start on Lowest Greenville, in downtown (around Plush and
Blue), then in the Samuell-Grand area. But after that, decisions will
have to be made with consideration to cost; after all, he reminds, the
city's trimming DPD overtime pay to deal with the budget deficit. But
as another DPD officer tells Unfair Park, this initiative is ultimately
necessary: "We don't want to take citizens' videos as gospel."