We walked right thru the midst of it and I want to commend the officers for keeping their cool in the middle of all that insanity.

I had just left Fellini's Neopolitan Pizzeria on Washington and was drawn like a moth to the flashing lights of about six or seven police vehicles on the scene. A feisty young lady involved was physically carted off away from the fray by well meaning young men. I had no doubt she was drunk out of her skull and most likely a contributor to the situation.
This could have been a very serious situation if a fire, or an injured obese person was involved as the street was totally blocked with the bar crowd, party busses, van taxis, and police vehicles, all double and triple parked. My first suggestion is to regulate the time a bus can remain double parked on any city street in Royal Oak (fifteen minutes would be reasonable). We cannot double park why should they be allowed?
Another practical suggestion is to not allow double parking within five hundred feet of a railroad track. Still another is to bag the meters in front of the few repeat problem bars so that commercial taxis, taxi vans and party busses can park there IF they purchase a permit to park at bagged meters in advance from City Hall. This would allow access for an ambulance, and engine, or if necessary a hook and ladder. Apparently common sense is not in abundance these days. Kudos to the officers who clearly did their job, albeit at a cost to the city. This is why I believe that repeat offender bars need to be fined to cover these costs Whether they are responsible ALL tend to overserve on Saint Patricks Day.

One more thing. Saint Patricks Day is a prime example of why cross training police to serve in Fire Department in Royal Oak would simply not work. Like it or not, Royal Oak's downtown is now clearly more an entertainment district than anything else, not only this day, but on many others including events such as the Dream Cruise and A, B, and E.

Ahem," healthy" girl if I offended your sensibility sorry, however it is a fact that the reason as explained to me by the ROFD for an ambulance to be followed by an engine is exactly just that type of situation where it would take more than two in the ambulance to lift an "obese" individual, perhaps I should use the term large, or heavy? Woud that be better? There are also other situations where three or four may be needed to save a life. This is why there needs to be something done about double parked party busses and vans as per my suggestion. Do you want fries with that?

Here is video of what occurred downtown on St. Patrick's Day:

http://www.youtube.com/user/RoyalOakSun?ob=0&feature=results_main

Here is some video from St. Patrick's Day, its amazing how many taxpayer dollars are spent enabling all of the midnight mayhem:
http://www.youtube.com/user/RoyalOakSun?ob=0&feature=results_main

Thank you for posting these atrocious videos of what happens in our downtown on a regular basis.

My tax dollars are being spent to patrol 6 blocks in the downtown versus my neighborhood. When there are fights like this in the downtown, and it happens nearly every weekend, all units are called to the scene. What does that mean? It means police service is sucked away from the neighborhoods.

At the last city commission meeting, the police chief made a cavalier statement that tassing one of the drunks wasn't a very big deal, and that it rather common. My son-in-law who is a police officer in another nearby community told me that they don't taser anyone in their community but only once or twice a year.

Also, the politicians keep telling us that the city is broke, but the police chief had to keep the afternoon shift on overtime to patrol these drunken fools. Where is that money coming from? Oh yea, they proposed to cut the Memorial Day parade budget in half!!

I've always thought bars in the city should be required to collect a $1 per patron cover charge and pay it out to the city to fund clean-up and security costs that the bar crowd causes. Why not have the bar crowd directly fund the extra clean-up and security themselves. Many of those who come here to party don't live here or pay taxes a $1 city cover charge would be a drop in the bucket when they're paying out $3-$10 per drink anyway, it would take some of the burden off the shoulders of the tax paying citizens of Royal Oak to fund the entertainment district costs.

Forget charging extra per drink, whose going to check each bill? The answer is obvious. Charge each bar with more than one call for the police in a year three hundred and fifty dollars, the same as the fire department charges for a false EMS call. As for those bars that consider this a slap on the wrist escalate the charge to five hundred dollars after the second call in one year. Now that is putting the punishment where it belongs as the city makes some money on fines and costs of arrest anyway.
Why this is not done can be only because these bars more likely than not have certain city officials in their pocket. Why should RO be holier than Detroit, Pontiac, Macomb, or Wayne County? If the shoe fits wear it.

This is one Remedy Debby, give each combantant a breathalyzer, tell them they have the choice of going in for public drunkeness, or revealing the last bar that served them. Then ticket that bar for overserving. Just the hassle of going to court with a lawyer would soon put a stop to that. Asking the drunks to state which bar they were in seperately and asking for a description of who served them should be enough corroberation along with pictures of their condition.