People say that downtown Burlingame “changes” after 11 pm and they don’t mean for the better. I decided to take advantage of the Burlingame Police Department’s Ride-along program to see the change for myself. After donning a bulletproof vest, Sgt. Jeff Downs and I hit the streets at 9 pm on a Saturday night for a six-hour tour.
My immediate impression was that our cops really know the town’s habits and many of its inhabitants. Our first call was a mere 10 minutes into my shift (Sgt. Downs had already been at work for three hours). It would be the easier of two meth-induced problems we would deal with that night. This contact was the third one with the same individual in less than 24 hours and highlighted to me the need for a little tougher stance at the Psych ward of Peninsula hospital. The revolving door needs to slow down a bit. The second meth-driven incident was worse. Later on a fire truck had to get a man off the roof of a commercial building and then an ambulance took him to the County hospital. He was an expensive problem for the taxpayers.
Next the officers broke up an unsupervised party of twenty-somethings on Drake Ave. that was just about to turn ugly. You should have seen that college kid’s face when the officer explained all the different forms of liability he had that night. We then made our first pass along Burlingame Avenue to give the bar bouncers some directions on handling the closing time crowd better. Then it was off to the bay front to inspect the area.
As an avid bicyclist and baseball coach, I know the nooks and crannies of the Burlingame bay front. We saw them all that night. I’m not sure what is hard to understand about “NO PARKING 10 pm – 6 am”, but Sgt. Downs and his crew had to repeat it several times. While we were in the North End, we checked for street racers on Gilbreth Rd. and Adrian Rd. The skids marks are there, but strong enforcement of the muffler and emissions laws has proven more costly to the racers than speeding tickets. With some alert placement of new pavement features this problem should be behind us.
After checking a few more city parks, parking lots, running some license plate numbers and dealing with a juvenile prank, it was about 1 pm and time to head downtown to watch Blush, Del Mar and Rockets close their doors for the night. The clubs start moving the largely out-of-town crowd onto the streets at about 115 am. Without being too graphic, let’s just say some patrons need to plan their use of the facilities better and shouldn’t be mixing their liquors so much. I think the City is well within its rights to demand that the clubs do more clean-up and possibly require some portable toilets outside for the unprepared. I spoke to my wife, the Mayor, about it the next morning while the smell was still fresh in my mind.
At 330 am as the shift came to an end, I was left with three impressions. Our police force has the same struggles getting to and from the bay front on Broadway and Peninsula that we do, but they are in much more of a hurry. Without the able assistance of the Hillsborough forces who step in easily, our split geography would be much more troublesome. Lastly, I think it is time to install several video cameras around the intersection of Burlingame Ave. and California Drive. London, England has 500,000 cameras in public places. I think three or four in Burlingame would make it safer for everyone, reduce City budget pressures and help the police deal more effectively with the nightclub crowd.
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