Nashville Bits and Pieces

[subkyle]

Saw this 1-800-flowers commercial this morning. Nice downtown angels!

[smeagolsfree]

This looks like something Nashville would do. Punish Food Vendors instead of controlling crime. Typical city response to a problem that will not go away by doing this. The rowdy folks will still be downtown after the bars close. Let's see how long it takes before they realize this.

Denver bans food trucks in response to crime surge | Watch (msn.com)

 

[MLBrumby]

36 minutes ago, smeagolsfree said:

This looks like something Nashville would do. Punish Food Vendors instead of controlling crime. Typical city response to a problem that will not go away by doing this. The rowdy folks will still be downtown after the bars close. Let's see how long it takes before they realize this.

Denver bans food trucks in response to crime surge | Watch (msn.com)

 

I don't get their reasoning... are the food trucks being 'magnets' for the crime?  That's pretty shocking as someone who's always felt safe in LoDo... a really cool area.  Will have to say though that I've noticed Denver has aggressive homeless.  Got assaulted by a man one afternoon near the Civic Center.

[Rick Dalton]

We need to clean up the homeless issue

[smeagolsfree]

2 hours ago, natethegreat said:

We need to clean up the homeless issue

So does every other major city in the country. It is not only an issue here but everywhere. It is getting worse because of the housing crisis and the cost of housing in the Metro areas. Look at Seattle, Portland, L.A. and you will see what is coming here. It has not even gotten bad here yet. It is pretty bad in Austin from what I have heard too.

When the owners of the Section 8 housing see they can make a lot more money selling and or redeveloping their properties', you know what will happen. It will continue to happen. There is no incentive for them to keep their property as Section 8. Any new housing that is built is not affordable, even if Metro does it. These are normally work force housing and not for the homeless. The homeless need housing close to the city center for access to Metro services and transportation, but the price of land is prohibitive to do so. It is a catch 22. This administration as all talk and very little action. It takes millions upon millions of dollars to start to solve the problem and one Permanent Supportive Housing building is a drop in the bucket. How long did that one take to get started?

Everyone wants the Rescue Mission out of Downtown including me, but where do they go? Where they are now will end up being a big problem as development continues around them and the homeless end up on the streets of Lower Broad causing a lot of issues. How many of those folks stay at the Rescue Mission? Probably not that many as they are kicked out of the Mission because they are not sober. So, is the RM the blame?

Now we could end up arresting many of them for small time crimes and filling up the brand-new jail and overloading the court system and the DA would put a stop to that pretty quickly.

So, back to the statement, "We need to clean up the homeless issue." That one is easier said than done because it is getting worse in a hurry and not better. You have to stop folks from becoming homeless to start with before you tackle the problem of the current homeless on the streets. they have always been there and many by choice.

[Rick Dalton]

8 minutes ago, smeagolsfree said:

So does every other major city in the country. It is not only an issue here but everywhere. It is getting worse because of the housing crisis and the cost of housing in the Metro areas. Look at Seattle, Portland, L.A. and you will see what is coming here. It has not even gotten bad here yet. It is pretty bad in Austin from what I have heard too.

When the owners of the Section 8 housing see they can make a lot more money selling and or redeveloping their properties', you know what will happen. It will continue to happen. There is no incentive for them to keep their property as Section 8. Any new housing that is built is not affordable, even if Metro does it. These are normally work force housing and not for the homeless. The homeless need housing close to the city center for access to Metro services and transportation, but the price of land is prohibitive to do so. It is a catch 22. This administration as all talk and very little action. It takes millions upon millions of dollars to start to solve the problem and one Permanent Supportive Housing building is a drop in the bucket. How long did that one take to get started?

Everyone wants the Rescue Mission out of Downtown including me, but where do they go? Where they are now will end up being a big problem as development continues around them and the homeless end up on the streets of Lower Broad causing a lot of issues. How many of those folks stay at the Rescue Mission? Probably not that many as they are kicked out of the Mission because they are not sober. So, is the RM the blame?

Now we could end up arresting many of them for small time crimes and filling up the brand-new jail and overloading the court system and the DA would put a stop to that pretty quickly.

So, back to the statement, "We need to clean up the homeless issue." That one is easier said than done because it is getting worse in a hurry and not better. You have to stop folks from becoming homeless to start with before you tackle the problem of the current homeless on the streets. they have always been there and many by choice.

I agree. It’s a drug issue. All of these homeless are on some hard substance, primarily opioids. It’s exploded in the US. Not sure what the solution is. 

[GregH]

The way I think about it is that there are a variety of issues that can make it difficult for someone to find and keep housing but the king top obvious one is money and everything else is sort of a comorbidity that makes that worse. As a semi-ridiculous example, think of the plenty of rich celebrities found dead of drugs in their mansions or luxury hotel rooms. They had no problem staying housed despite being just as mentally ill or drug addicted as someone on the streets of Nashville. We can't and don't want to fix homelessness by giving people millions of dollars, but we can make housing cheaper and lower the bar of what it takes to be housed. Can we fix mental illness and drug addiction? I don't know, plenty of people with lots of resources still struggle so maybe we can't. But we can build housing, we know how to do it and the cost to do it is knowable.

[Rick Dalton]

These people you see on the street would not be able to afford housing if it was $50 a month. Many of them are screaming at the sky and completely deteriorating. Extreme drug abuse and mental health problems. Again, cheaper housing helps the poor and middle class, but not someone with zero ability to generate income or be a real member of society.

[GregH]

If housing was $50 a month all of those people could be housed because it would be easy for a loved one or charity to pay house them.

Edited August 5, 2022 by GregH

[smeagolsfree]

That’s the big issue. The trouble makers most of the time are the ones that want to be out on the street. There are some that want to kick their drug or alcohol problem that do not have the resources to do so that can be productive members of society. A lot of these folks are mentally ill too. You can’t just lock them up against their will any longer.

I really think the ones that cause the biggest problems are just a small minority of the total number of those on the streets.

Housing is no where near 50 a month nor 500 a month. That’s the problem. 

[MLBrumby]

My church has outreach to homeless families here by hosting them, mostly intact families and a few single-parent (mothers in our case) with kid(s).  My wife and I have been involved for over a decade, and so we get to know them fairly well.  Over that time, I'd guess 20 families in our house alone.  When you get to a certain level of acquaintance, you get to a point you can ask "how?"... and of the dozen or so times we've had that conversation, it was always a drug addiction that resulted in their homelessness.  Fortunately in those cases, they had will to overcome their addictions and lots of help from the church and other groups. I'm not familiar with the public programs (only peripherally through this outreach); so can't comment to those groups. No doubt the addicts are getting some professional help whether that's public/private healthcare services. 

[rookzie]

6 hours ago, MLBrumby said:

I don't get their reasoning... are the food trucks being 'magnets' for the crime?  That's pretty shocking as someone who's always felt safe in LoDo... a really cool area.  Will have to say though that I've noticed Denver has aggressive homeless.  Got assaulted by a man one afternoon near the Civic Center.

 

7 hours ago, smeagolsfree said:

This looks like something Nashville would do. Punish Food Vendors instead of controlling crime. Typical city response to a problem that will not go away by doing this. The rowdy folks will still be downtown after the bars close. Let's see how long it takes before they realize this.

Denver bans food trucks in response to crime surge | Watch (msn.com)

 

It doesn't seem to be related to homelessness ─ at least that doesn't seem to be the epicenter of the action undertaken.

According to the Denver Post, "...city officials banned food trucks from several popular nightlife blocks in an effort to more quickly disperse crowds and minimize violence as bars close."

As the Smeags said, they're only punishing the vendors instead of addressing crime itself.  It's BS to blame any cause of crime on selling food from vendor trucks or kiosks.  Would the same reasoning apply, if those same vendors had leased space within a brick and mortor open-air structure?  They going to close them down from their own spaces?  I think there would be some immediate picketing at City Hall in a NY minute!  THAT's where the real fights would be!
 

“To increase safety for all who visit and work in the LoDo area, including the food truck vendors, DPD believes that having them operate in a different location is a solution to help facilitate people leaving downtown during the out-crowd and to curb large gatherings, during which DPD has seen conflicts and violence...”    (The police spokesperson stated)
 

That's the kind of crap that the city of Va. Beach used to do when I lived in Tidewater Va. back in the '80s and '90s.  I suspect in part it has some to do with whiney residents, but more to do with a recent incident in which Denver police officers shot an armed man outside a bar and injured six bystanders with their gunfire.  The vendors make their livelihoods off those drunk-puppies streaming from the watering pits, and that's no different from when I myself used to drag-a$$ to a White Castle on the west side of St. Louis at 3 AM back in the early-mid '80s after a Friday night of hopping.  Or to a White Tower back in the day, outside Detroit (Hamtramck. MI).  I think this issue just might have an effect on future of a couple of incumbent council members, lest they forget what the real constituency is.

[smeagolsfree]

For some reason they got off on the homeless and devolved from the Denver article.

[rookzie]

Yes, I don't think MLBrumby necessarily associated the Denver move with homelessness.  Instead he seems to have had a homeless dude accost him in some way ─ somewhat tainting his memorable experience as a visitor.

I've had the same happen to me some 35 years ago in Norfolk and more recently here in Nashville, outside the Charlotte Walmart near the curbside bus stop.  Then I went inside the store to sic the manager on his fat-a$$, to at least temporary avail.

[MontanaGuy]

9 hours ago, smeagolsfree said:

This looks like something Nashville would do. Punish Food Vendors instead of controlling crime. Typical city response to a problem that will not go away by doing this. The rowdy folks will still be downtown after the bars close. Let's see how long it takes before they realize this.

I watched that video and my only thought is that the authorities who came up with this ban on food vendors don't have a clue what to do about their crime surge but wanted to be seen as taking action and this is all they could come up with!  

[BnaBreaker]

Seems to me that if the bulk of the problem is with belligerently drunk people getting into fights after exiting bars at closing time, they should be inviting more food trucks into the area, not shoving them away.  I bet their problem down in that neighborhood is about to get a lot worse now that there isn't a cheap and convenient food option available nearby to help soak up the liquor.

[markhollin]

For the first time since 2014, Nashville will host the ASAE Annual Meeting & Exposition from August 20-23, playing a crucial role in securing convention bookings for the next five to ten years.

The ASAE, American Society of Association Executives, is made up of 45,000 association executives and industry partners and around 4,000 are attending ASAE’s 2022 meeting, the first in three years.

A large portion of these attendees will be the ones to pick where their companies should have future meetings, making it a chance for Nashville to show off its value and assets for conventions.

“Our meeting is considered the Super Bowl of meetings for associations. We estimate that an immediate economic impact is about $15 [million] to $18 million and historically, over 20% of our attendees will bring business back to the host city,” said the group's president and CEO Michelle Mason.

When Nashville hosted the event in 2014, it led to 41 convention bookings and 201,205 room nights, resulting in $120.5 million in direct spending and $21 million in tax revenue, according to the Nashville Convention and Visitor's Corp.

More at NBJ here:

https://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/news/2022/08/05/hosting-the-asae-conventions-more-important-than-e.html

[donNdonelson2]

I remember well the very first time ASAE had their big meeting in Nashville at Opryland Hotel (early 1980s). The theme was “Stay in Tune.”  The Opryland Talent division of the park’s entertainment department produced many hours of shows and peripheral entertainment, employing lots of singers, dancers, musicians, and technicians during a time in early spring when work was rather slow. Everyone was rolling in the cash there for a while. Nice little trip down memory lane for me here…back to our regular Friday festivities.

[bnacincy]

16 hours ago, BnaBreaker said:

Seems to me that if the bulk of the problem is with belligerently drunk people getting into fights after exiting bars at closing time, they should be inviting more food trucks into the area, not shoving them away.  I bet their problem down in that neighborhood is about to get a lot worse now that there isn't a cheap and convenient food option available nearby to help soak up the liquor.

That's why there is a huge Krystal restaurant on Bourbon Street in New Orleans for this very purpose.

Eating before and after drinking alcohol slows down the rate of alcohol absorption in the bloodstream-Nashville should be encouraging more food carts and not try and get rid of them.

Edited August 6, 2022 by bnacincy

[KJHburg]

On 8/6/2022 at 11:32 AM, bnacincy said:

That's why there is a huge Krystal restaurant on Bourbon Street in New Orleans for this very purpose.

Eating before and after drinking alcohol slows down the rate of alcohol absorption in the bloodstream-Nashville should be encouraging more food carts and not try and get rid of them.

maybe downtown Nashville needs a Waffle House downtown Atlanta has one at Centennial Park and so does downtown Wilmington NC 

[MagicPotato]

9 hours ago, KJHburg said:

maybe downtown Nashville needs a Waffle House downtown Atlanta has one at Centennial Park and so does downtown Wilmington NC 

I'm surprised this hasn't been done yet. 

[titanhog]

9 hours ago, KJHburg said:

maybe downtown Nashville needs a Waffle House downtown Atlanta has one at Centennial Park and so does downtown Wilmington NC 

Someone needs to buy one of the 4 story buildings on Lower Broad and have a Waffle House on the first floor…Taco Bell on Second…White Castle on Third…and McDonalds up top.  Just make sure there are plenty of bathrooms inside.

[smeagolsfree]

Yep, we can name it The Drunks Diner or The Homeless Haven with all of the bathrooms. 

[Bos2Nash]

Raising Canes (going in at 212 Broadway) will not be selling alcohol, but has an estimated revenue of six figures PER DAY. Talk about a serious amount of breading and fry oil to absorb that alcohol lol

[donNdonelson2]

34 minutes ago, Bos2Nash said:

Raising Canes (going in at 212 Broadway) will not be selling alcohol, but has an estimated revenue of six figures PER DAY. Talk about a serious amount of breading and fry oil to absorb that alcohol lol

Raising Cane’s Texas Toast should be a “bigger picker upper” for the booze, too!

(credit to Bounty paper towels for the clever catch phrase)