El Paso Police And Cinci Business Owners Talk About Recent Violence In Area

The west El Paso nightspot known as the Cincinnati Entertainment District has gone through ups and downs in recent years. For a few years it was the place to see and be seen, packed with people almost every night, with bars and restaurants overflowing with patrons. Then, for a few years the fire cooled when other areas of town began developing their own "entertainment districts". Business seemed to slow way down and then the area businesses got together and re-branded the area, the City put up lights over the street, changed the two-way traffic to one-way and things came roaring back. Then the pandemic hit.

For the last year, bars and restaurants have opened, been closed down, had to come up with a way to socially distance in small spaces, come up with kitchens so that profits made up 51% of their revenue, and now, they are facing an increase in violent crime that has them in the news on a regular basis.

In the past year or so there has been an as-of-yet unsolved stabbing murder that happened in September of 2019, a stabbing attack that happened in late January, and early Monday morning, a person was shot and ultimately died from their injuries after a fight at the Chino Chido bar that spilled out into the parking lot.

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The question is, what the heck is going on in Cinci? A business owner says he and his fellow business owners need to think about re-evaluating "the kind of business we’re getting and attracting as a street as a whole." Is that really the thing to do, though? The bar owner in that story also says the violence is the responsibility of patrons at Cinci bars and restaurants who "drink too much." Perhaps that bar owner should listen to his own words. The patrons at his bar and at other bars are drinking too much and becoming violent? Perhaps they should realize that overserving patrons is a gateway to violence and stop doing it. Perhaps the City should have EPPD officers patrolling to make sure that people aren't overserved.

The point here is we all know that alcohol leads to lowered inhibitions and that can lead to other bad things. If as a bar owner you know that overserving people can lead to violence, why aren't you being more responsible and not overserving? Cinci is a great thing to have, but everyone needs to take responsibility even if it means less revenue.