An ordinance to regulate bars, restaurants and nightclubs under Cincinnati’s chronic nuisance law did not get an expected City Council vote Wednesday.

It’s unusual for Council to hold an item that already passed out of committee with enough of a majority to pass a final vote. Here’s what happened.

An existing city law allows supervision of multi-family properties deemed a “chronic nuisance” due to a certain level of crime on the property in a certain period of time.

The ordinance under consideration would add some commercial properties, including bars, restaurants, and nightclubs.

Council member Seth Walsh says the city needs more options to monitor other types of properties.

"We'll actually be able to get involved earlier in many of these cases," Walsh said in committee Tuesday. “We've found that these commercial tenants are struggling to figure it out, and now with the help of the city, hopefully they will have that support instead of feeling like they're spiraling out of control."

Quality of Life Attorney Mark Manning says the goal is to work with business owners, not penalize them.
"Obviously, our property owners aren't going out and shooting people," Manning said. "But they might be doing something that is creating the conditions that make that crime more likely. And so, we want them to do their part to take those steps to try to mitigate the potential for that happening."

Other types of businesses, like gas stations, convenience stores, vacant lots, retail, or office space, are not included.

Manning says the reason for the limited expansion is the city's capacity for enforcement.

"That is the sole driving factor and where the line was drawn in this particular case, of what can we responsibly be able to enforce," he said.

Council’s Public Safety and Quality of Life Committee first debated the measure on Tuesday.

Some Council members expressed concern about the ordinance being used to unfairly target minority businesses.

“We do get a lot of complaints from Black owners of bars, and also white owners who have a lot of Black patrons that they feel that they are being discriminated against,” said Vice Mayor Jan-Michele Lemon Kearney.

Officials say measures are in place to reduce the risk of bias.

First, only certain crimes count toward the threshold that would trigger a chronic nuisance declaration – in short: drugs, disorder, and violence. Complaints that do not count include traffic violations outside the property, and building code violations.

Once a month, Cincinnati Police Department staff run a report for properties that may qualify as a chronic nuisance based on the number of calls for service related to those specific crimes. Those reports are manually reviewed to remove duplicates and unsubstantiated calls.

“You start with this giant amount of calls for service, crime offense reports, and arrest reports, and then we do a review, and it shrinks down,” Manning said. “We dispense with certain types of calls that we know no officer ever responded on, and then we get down further to review each individual call to make sure what's actually happening here is verified and something legitimate occurred.”

In other words, a person can’t force a chronic nuisance declaration by spamming 911 with false reports.

The Public Safety and Quality of Life Committee advanced the ordinance to full City Council for a final vote.

Sometimes a Council committee will take a roll-call vote of each member, and the item will pass only if a majority of members support it.

It’s common for committees to advance legislation without a roll-call vote when there seems to be unanimous support. That’s what happened Tuesday with the chronic nuisance ordinance.

Eight of the nine Council members are on this committee, and all were present for the vote. None objected to passage or requested a roll-call vote.

A few business owners spoke during public comment Wednesday, asking Council not to vote yet.

Gregory Parker with the African American Chamber of Commerce says the changes are vague and could lead to bad judgement calls.

“I request that you delay the vote on the chronic nuisance ordinance amendment until restaurant, bar owners, and other businesses that are affected have had the opportunity for input and collaboration,” Parker said.

The city charter requires that an ordinance be “fully and distinctly read on three different days.”

Council nearly always suspends that rule with a vote; it requires at least seven votes, but typically it is unanimous.

For the chronic nuisance item on Wednesday, all nine Council members voted “no” to suspend the three readings rule. That means they could not proceed to a vote on the item itself.

“It gives time for us to have more conversations with the community,” Council member Seth Walsh told WVXU after the meeting. “They wouldn’t be able to implement it right away anyway, so there’s no rush.”

Council is now back on summer recess until returning to the normal meeting schedule the week of September 8.

Even if it passes later this year, it may be longer before enforcement ramps up because there’s not enough staff capacity right now.

A spokesperson for the City Manager says a partial FTE (full-time equivalent) position will be added to the Law Department’s Quality of Life Division.

“The maximum cost would be approximately $70,000 annually,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “Law is absorbing the cost of the position based on unplanned vacancy savings.”

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