Local government grows power, targets private businessowners after shooting

WICHITA – A shooting took place inside City Nightz club in Wichita, Kansas in the early morning hours of July 2. There is conflicting reporting on the number of people who were injured by the shooting with some media outlets saying seven while others are saying nine, but every news source is saying an additional two people were trampled. Everyone survived.

Violence at this particular nightclub is common with Detective Chris Merceau claiming that police have been called to the nightclub about a dozen times in 2023 alone for various incidents, including a report of aggravated battery and a drive-by shooting that occurred on May 21. 

Now, Wichita’s City Council is taking an initiative to give police more power in a way that will harm local businessowners in an attempt to sequester the violence. Claiming that current ordinances are “inconsistent” on the process of suspending or revoking licenses of clubs where violence has occurred, the City is changing the ordinances, allowing police more power to suspend such licenses.

According to reporting from KWCH, the changes to the ordinance are as follows:

• Establishments licensed to serve CMB or alcohol are required to have a safety plan to address the safety needs of their business.

• The Chief of Police may suspend a license up to 30 days if repeated violent criminal acts have occurred at an establishment over a six-month period and the licensee has not taken appropriate actions to remediate the violence. A minimum 5 days’ written notice is required.

• Appeal rights of licensees are clarified.

• The Chief of Police may immediately suspend a license on an emergency basis if there has been a significant violent act or there is a credible threat of violence to the public coupled with a lack of sufficient security to protect the public. An emergency suspension may not exceed 10 days.

• Licensees will be required to attend an in-person meeting the Chief of Police or designee if the license has been suspended on an emergency basis.

• Licensed businesses will not be permitted to operate console or video style games of skill where currency is the prize awarded.

• Failure to pay an administrative penalty or having other monies owed to the City such as parking or water/sewer fees for a period in excess of 90 days could result in suspension or denial of an application.

Yes, police are going to have an easier time suspending a private businessowner’s license if the place of business is susceptible to seeing more crime than usual, rather than just upping police presence in the area where the business is located in order to deter crime. 

However, some people are critical of the local government, displeased as to how Democrat Mayor Brandon Whipple has been governing, and this has been showing in the recent Mayoral race where he received less than 75 percent of the vote that took place on August 1, barely even making it to the general election which is to be held in November.

Please vote “I’m above the law” Whipple out of office

— Chris Rundell (@Rundy6665) August 2, 2023

Under Whipple Wichita has become the 18th most violent city in the US, its remarkable that he got so many votes. The vote blue no matter who cult really showed up

— DRP (@SaltyGeology) August 2, 2023

It should be noted that many sources rank Wichita differently in terms of most dangerous cities in the U.S. with some sites, like Visual Capitalist and Neighborhood Scout ranking Wichita as low as number 54 and Insider Monkey ranking Wichita as high as number nine. 

Whatever the number is, violence in Wichita is prevalent. Reporting from the night of the recent City Nightz club shooting found that at 6:30 p.m. Saturday, leading into the early morning mass shooting, a 17-year-old boy was found dead after allegedly being shot during an argument by a 21-year-old man who showed up to a hospital with a gunshot wound in his hand. 

Additionally, just 20 minutes after the City Nightz shooting, a 35-year-old man was walking down a road when he was shot in the arm by an unknown suspect.

“We have to take actions to push back against this increase in gun violence that we are seeing,” Mayor Whipple said. “We have to come together as a community and talk with our young people in particular about how resorting to gun violence is not the way to solve a problem or issue.”

While I can agree that certain actions should be taken to address the gun violence, the government going after local businesses is not the answer.

If anything, these ordinances won’t make people safer, it will just make small businessowners close their businesses and move elsewhere, if they can. Contrary to popular belief, just because someone owns their own business does not mean they’re rich — especially when it comes to small businesses. According to PayScale, the average small businessowner’s income is $69,579 a year before taxes, but can range from $31,000 to $134,000 a year. 

On top of this, when crime does happen at a business, this, strangely, hurts the business. This is because it makes people less likely to spend their money there as people don’t tend to like going to places where they feel unsafe. On top of losing customers, you can also lose employees who do not feel the job is worth the risk. Hiring and training new employees costs a lot of money. According to the Sasha Corporation, which averaged 15 studies that determined the average costs to replace an $8 per hour employee cost on average $9,444.47 per turnover. Furthermore, damaged and lost property as a result of a crime means the business will have to put more money into replacing and/or fixing their property.

All businesses want to protect themselves from crime because it’s a net positive for the business and their customers, which in turn creates more profit for the business. Small businesses, however, are less capable of protecting themselves from crime, and these new ordinances that the Wichita government is placing on them are only going to hurt these businesses more. They already have to jump through hoops and pay so much money to the government just to get their licenses and this updated ordinance creates more hoops for businesses that cost both time and money. Not only this, but if they can’t find any additional money to protect their business from crime, again something that businesses tend to do when they can afford it, the government will step in and take away their license(s) for a set period of time, effectively shutting down the business, possibly for good, when instead, the police could do what taxpayer money is supposedly funding them to do, and patrol areas at high risk for violent crime.