The late-night drama has mellowed in downtown Anoka's bar district in the past year.
Three bars closed in 2009, and police calls and assaults dropped. Unlike 2008, no outside police agencies were summoned to help gain control of boisterous bar crowds.
The change is due largely to tighter bar security rules and having two officers patrolling on foot and by car in the Jackson Street bar area every Friday and Saturday night and on four busy holiday nights, said Police Chief Philip Johanson.
The chief recently gave the City Council a report showing that total service calls dropped last year to 205 from 233 in 2008. Assaults dropped from 32 to 11, including a decline in aggravated assaults from four to one.
"Our presence there prevents a lot of this from happening," Johanson said recently. "The officers are walking the 200 block of Jackson and the parking ramp looking for [drinking-related] arguments or people who had too much to drink. When it spills out onto the street, the cops break it up."
The chief noted that more than half of the service calls involved two bars that have licenses to stay open an extra hour, until 2 a.m., Billy's Bar and Grill and Jackson Street Grill and Bar. Most of the 205 calls were non-emergencies, such as thefts, medical issues, or lost property.
Jackson Street Grill saw its calls drop from 107 to 69 last year, while Billy's had 61 each year.
Aggravated assaults dropped from four to one last year and misdemeanor assaults from 28 to 10.