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Coeur d'Alene City Council votes to explore disorderly conduct ordinance

Coeur d'Alene Police Chief Lee White discussed possible actions to lower the number of incidents downtown after a recent spike.

COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho — Coeur d'Alene Police Chief Lee White discussed the current increase in alcohol-related incidents in the city's downtown area as well as possible solutions with the Coeur d'Alene City Council on Tuesday night.

In February, White had said there were instances of people from Spokane participating in gang activity in the downtown area. In late February, a downtown Coeur d'Alene bar announced it wouldn't be serving patrons with a Washington ID.

A motion was passed by the council by a 6-1 vote to direct the city's legal counsel to work with police on a possible disorderly conduct ordinance, as well as getting more equipment such as lights for the downtown area, with Councilmember Dan Gookin voting against.

Gookin said during discussion that he didn't support the ordinance because he felt the uptick in crime was caused by people coming over from Spokane due to Washington having shut down businesses."

"The problem we're trying to fight right now is a problem created by Washington state, because they locked themselves down and they shut down businesses. We can't legislate against that," Gookin said. "So I think this, kind of just, a lot of activity for nothing. The solution is Washington needs to open itself back up and they need to stay the hell over there. And that'll help because then we'll go back to normal, like you said, where this was a time off for you guys."

Councilmember Christie Wood also said during the meeting that the council should look into a public intoxication ordinance, to which White said it would be difficult to enforce because officers can't arrest someone for being drunk. The council also discussed a possible curfew but said more research needed to be done.

White also said it's up to bars to make sure they aren't overserving customers, adding that, "We can't have a cop at every bar."

White also said there are issues with enforcing the city's disturbing the peace ordinance.

"Here's the problem we have with our current disturbing the peace ordinance: It requires the victim to go to court, and finding a victim at two o'clock in the morning who wants to prosecute for the other people, who were basically yelling at each other, are about to fight but haven't started fighting yet, but are causing a massive disturbance to the point where there's 20 or 30 people outside watching this soon to be fight encounter, is problematic for us," White said. 

"But there's no way currently to charge anything because a fight hasn't happened yet and requires a victim, and once again, finding the victim at 1:30 in the morning, and wants to go to court and take a day off work later on to go and testify about something that they just witnessed after stepping out of bar x is difficult," he continued. 

Wood also suggested that councilmembers go on a ride-along with police before the summer.

White, responding to a question about why this is happening in the winter when an uptick in activity normally happens in the fall, says it is likely due to Spokane being under more COVID-19 restrictions now. He added that officers are seeing more "Spokane [license] plates" past midnight in the winter months than normal. He also added that the increase in activity usually happens when school resource officers are added back to patrol duty in the summer, instead of in the winter when they are still working in schools.

   

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