Mayor Andrew Ginther asking Short North businesses to close at midnight to curb violence

Two consecutive weekends of gun violence in one of Columbus' most popular and bustling entertainment districts has prompted city leaders to enact a number of new strategies to crack down on crime in the Short North.

Chief among the new safety measures that Mayor Andrew J. Ginther announced during a news conference on Thursday is the request that businesses voluntarily close at midnight for the upcoming weekend and beyond. Ginther said the request — which is for Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays — will likely remain in place for "as long as it takes" until the violence begins to abate in the neighborhood located just north of Downtown.

"It is time for us to take a clear, strong and united stand against gun violence in the streets of Columbus," Ginther said before assembled media in Poplar Park on the southern edge of the Short North. "Back-to-back weekends of deadly violence in this area have served as an alarming wake-up call to the entire community."

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My kid had an escape room visit Monday night at Vine and High. I sat there and watched the entire 90 plus minutes, this is what I saw.

A lot of drunk sheep paying zero attention to anything. No situational awareness other than to their phones or drunk flirting.

A few random wolves walking around looking for prey, one white, one black, one Mexican or white

A group of urban dirt bikes and quads with no exhaust riding up high like it was a trail, with zero fear or regard.


One fire truck, went north and came back a little while later, joyriding


Zero cops. Not on foot, not in a cruiser. Nothing, zilch, nada.


Recipe for disaster from what I saw

Stupid ought to hurt... Funny though, the riots on campus didn't really start until they closed all the campus bars. The road to hell is paved with misguided intentions.

I love how Gunther doesn’t seem to give a shit about the decades of rampant crime in Linden, the near east side, bottoms, etc.

But when the white liberals who proudly called to defund the police get affected, that’s what gets the progressive Mayor off his ass.

@CavVet you think it was bad on a Monday?   We used to be down there during college so 06-09 and it’s always been a drunk mess.  Cops were there to make sure it didn’t get TOO bad.

I was there 05-09.  

I avoided south campus pretty heavily. But I lived north of campus about 5 miles.

so the tranny bars will close early

@Foxtrot08  we probably went by each other with no idea a few times.  Even when we lived well north of campus we’d still go downtown; then have to run home after drinking the cab money.

Our rugby club was at Buttles and High before rent went through the roof. There were fights all the time, but no gangs with guns. Columbus's big problem now is all the gangbangers and chicken shit Mayor.

It's hilarious how, not too long ago, those same people were screaming to defund the pigs... Oops.