Santa Ana : Bar Checks Win Credit as Violent Crime Drops

Preliminary figures from the Police Department’s bar-check program, launched Dec. 1, suggest a dramatic decline in the number of violent crimes in bars, including those targeted by the program, officials said.

Violent crimes reported to police in the first 11 months of 1984 averaged between 20 and 30 per month for all of the city’s 174 bars, according to Capt. James L. Dittman, in charge of investigations for the department.

For the month of December, however, police handled six such cases, a reduction of between 70% and 75%, he said.

In December, the six-man bar-check teams visited the 12 bars that police have dubbed the “Dirty Dozen” 274 times in 16 days, concentrating their efforts on weekends. Those checks resulted in 100 arrests, most of which were for drug- or alcohol-related offenses, Dittman said. The team also took field reports from 109 people and issued 14 citations for alcoholic beverage control violations, he said.

“This is only a preliminary finding,” Dittman cautioned. “However, we do believe that the program has had a significant effect on crimes of violence in bars, and we are meeting our objective: to reduce these crimes.”

Thus far in January, bar-check teams have dropped in on the targeted bars 131 times in seven days, making 46 arrests and 51 field interviews, Lt. Greg Cooper, head of special investigations, said.

The program is experimental, and a review is scheduled for early April to determine if it will be continued beyond four months.