By Elizabeth Bowie
Residents of the Elgin Street area are teaming up with police to crack down on noisy bar and restaurant patrons who leave garbage in the streets, park illegally and blast music from their cars into the early hours of the morning.
Those who live in the area say that in the last few years, it has become especially hard to sleep through the night when late-night revellers spill out onto the street after 2 a.m.
“The level of filth has so greatly increased over the three or four years that I’ve been downtown that it has become unmanageable,” says resident Fiona McFarlane.
McFarlane says she is routinely kept awake by groups of people who stand below her living room window talking loudly and eating from fast-food restaurants after the bars close.
McFarlane says in the morning her yard is full of half-eaten food and wrappers from the night before.
Police met with about thirty residents this week to hear their concerns and brainstorm solutions to some of the problems.
Police receive a steady flow of noise complaints from people living in the area, especially on weekends, and are trying to get to the root of the problem, rather then simply responding to complaint after complaint.
Some residents say loud music coming from the bars, along with motorcycles and cars with roaring mufflers and sensitive car alarms are making them think twice about where they have decided to live.
John Savage, a former resident of the neighbourhood, says the noise problems forced him to move out of the area and into another part of town.
“I had to get out of here,” he says. “It was just getting too noisy and it wasn’t fun. I row in the morning so, to be kept up until 4 a.m. when you have to wake up at 4:30 a.m. is not very nice.”
Savage, a former real estate appraiser, says he also has concerns about the property values of the homes in the area. “From an investment standpoint it’s bad. Any decreases in property. . .are related to lifestyle and the lifestyle is seriously being impacted by the noise problems emanating from Elgin Street.”
Police are looking at several solutions, including increasing police presence on the streets and improving lighting in parks and on the streets to deter people from drug use and urinating on public and private property.
Residents at the meeting agreed that Elgin Street should look at creating a business improvement association, such as the Sparks Street Mall and the Bank Street Promanade, which would see the street developed and maintained. That item is expected to come up at a meeting next month when police meet with the owners and managers of the bars and restaurants.
The average weekend night can see 2,500 people on Elgin Street, says Ottawa police Const. Mark Horton.
Horton, who organized the meeting, says often people who are creating the disturbances are not from the area and think of it only as a bar district and not as a residential neighbourhood.
“I think a lot of the problems would be eliminated if people recognized that they have to respect our community the same as they would respect their own community.”