Searching For Answers on Water Street Violence

But area alderman thinks there is only one option left.

By Jeramey Jannene - Sep 11th, 2026 06:15 pm

Food trucks parked on N. Water Street. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

Ald. Robert Bauman agrees there is a violence and disorder problem with the Water Street bar district. But he no longer thinks he has the ability to craft a solution.

“We have no legislative solution,” said Bauman in an interview on Sept. 1.

On Friday, he even walked back one idea he earlier tried: banning food trucks from the district after 10 p.m. Judge Jean Kies had already blocked the policy from going into effect while a lawsuit plays out, but Bauman is now throwing in the towel in an attempt to avoid years of litigation.

Since 2021, the bar district has been plagued by high-profile violent incidents that peak every summer and fade in the winter. The issue, according to several sources, stems from loiterers who never go into the bars. Based on arrest records and reports on the age of those injured, many of the individuals are not even old enough to go into the bars.

“I think the Water Street entertainment district is going to go away as we’ve known it,” Bauman said during Friday’s Public Safety & Health Committee meeting.

He does have one solution, but it’s not something the Common Council can control. And it might not even be something Police Chief Jeffrey Norman can reasonably control.

“I think there needs to be a much larger police presence so they can actually enforce quality-of-life ordinances,” said Bauman on Sept. 1. On Friday he doubled down. “We understand the police department has conflicting demands on their resources. We understand they prioritize and probably should prioritize our neighborhoods where there is a much higher propensity of actual violent crime in the form of non-fatal shootings and homicides and robberies. That’s a command staff decision. We can’t control how they deploy their resources. But basically, absent a substantial change in resource deployment in the entertainment districts, I think the days are numbered for the Water Street entertainment district as we’ve come to know it. I think that should be acknowledged because we just don’t have the police resources to provide the adequate staffing to both patrol and hold people accountable for misbehavior. It’s just that straightforward in my view.”

Even if it wanted to surge patrols on Water Street, it doesn’t realistically have the officers. Later in the meeting, MPD command staff briefed the committee on their challenges with staffing and recruiting. The council has funded the maximum possible three recruiting classes with up to 65 members in recent years, but the upcoming class will only graduate 29 members.

“They do try very hard,” said Kendall Breunig, a real estate developer and Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE) regent, of the police on Friday. But he said the police are only reactive. A more proactive solution, he believes, is restricting reasons for people to gather. “The food trucks themselves are not the problem. It’s the people who gather around them,” he said.

Bauman thinks people need to be honest about the role of food trucks. “They are the problem because they are the magnet for the people who assemble underage, without entering bars and just want to hang out,” he said.

MSOE owns the parking lot adjacent to where the food trucks park and has a residence hall, with 300 students, a block to the south, across from many of the bars.

“It becomes a matter of priority. Is it more important to be concerned about 300 students or the rights of food truck operators to be able to sell later at night?” asked Breunig while donning an MSOE hat. He’s been one of the few individuals willing to speak on the record about the problem and its possible solutions.

Multiple bar owners contacted by Urban Milwaukee declined to speak on the record. Bauman said it’s because they’re trying to protect their business interests. But one bar, the Silk on Water strip club, announced it was temporarily closing because of the violence. A spokesperson told Urban Milwaukee that the bar would reopen if there were material changes and pushed back on skepticism by Bauman and others that the violence is not the reason for the closing.

Breunig has also attempted to interject himself further into the situation. He purchased the building at 1207 N. Water St. that housed Duke’s on Water and Varsity. After blocking a lease renewal for the bars, he’s offering the Duke’s space to MPD.

The Milwaukee Police Department said, in advance of Friday’s meeting, that it had no updates on the proposed substation or its strategy for the bar district.

Breunig is also proposing that the city switch the version of its food truck regulations it uses on Water Street to the other option it created in 2023: a density limit. Thinning out the number of trucks would improve things, he said. Breunig called it an “in-between compromise.”

Ald. JoCasta Zamarripa, who was a co-author of the food truck ordinance, said she supports the repeal. “Food truck policy has been the most difficult thing to work on here on the Common Council,” she said. Zamarripa, who is running for secretary of state, said she hopes her colleagues don’t give up on the issue, despite its difficulty, and is pleased with legislation crafted by herself and the late Jonathan Brostoff to end the practice of block-by-block bans. “It was good stuff that benefited all entrepreneurs, whether they were food truck operators or brick-and-mortar restaurant owners.”

The 10 p.m. downtown ban also included an 11 p.m. citywide restriction. Zamarripa introduced an amendment to Bauman’s repeal that would lift both restrictions to 1 a.m., the prior limit.

“I don’t fault Alderman Bauman for what he tried to do, he did it, if you recall, during a very urgent time,” she said, citing shootings and other disorder.

Bauman also previously introduced a proposal to reduce late-night scooter access and to fence off the bar district, which he told Urban Milwaukee he doesn’t expect to advance without area business improvement districts or the administration advocating for it.

And while Bauman thinks his quiver might be out of arrows, City Attorney Evan Goyke believes the council can still act if it chooses. “This repeal takes us back to where we were. It does not foreclose any type of future legislative endeavor,” he said.

Ald. Sharlen P. Moore said she was interested in a midnight restriction, which Bauman and Zamarripa expressed support for. But Assistant City Attorney Joshua B. Cronin said only a repeal would stop the litigation.

The committee voted unanimously to withdraw the restriction. The full council will consider the repeal in two weeks.

The law firm suing the city on behalf of a food truck owner supports the decision. “This is an encouraging step forward, we look forward to a full Common Council vote and the Mayor’s ultimate approval,” said Lucas Vebber, deputy counsel for Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty.

But Bauman said it was ironic that Hammes Company, the landlord for WILL in the nearby Palladium building, has now submitted a letter saying not to repeal the food truck ban. “I’m glad they finally came out of the woodwork to participate in this process and state their position, but they’re frankly about five months too late.”

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September 12, 2014 - Robert Bauman received $386 from Kendall Breunig

Categories: Food & Drink, Politics, Public Safety

Comments

Ja1Ju2mke says:

September 11, 2026 at 8:12 pm

Bar’s and nightclubs need to pony-up and pay the city for stronger enforcement.
mr_cox says:

September 12, 2026 at 8:18 am

Yes, bars must pay their part for enforcement. But, that’s a band aid. When people are financially stressed, violence erupts, and young people are being squeezed from all sides. Those “loiterers who never go into the bars” are young people who want to socialize but can’t afford to pay the high drink prices incessant inflation has produced. The problem will never be solved entirely through policing. Unfortunately, that leaves few options for the city when it’s being squeezed itself by the Republican-controlled state legislature.
Johnstanbul says:

September 12, 2026 at 9:03 am

Yeah it’s the tacos and not the excessive amounts of booze causing people to shoot and fight each other.
Manuel Lara says:

September 12, 2026 at 9:39 am

Hopeful someone from the Common Council reads these. However, I ran this scenario through A.I. to scan comparable situations in others cities and what enacted solutions are in place to resolve. Here’s what it gave me. Why not source existing ideas that have been put in place: Physical redesign of the street (Austin, Sixth Street)
Austin went the opposite direction from a pedestrian mall. Changes that took effect in December 2024 reintroduced vehicular traffic on weekend nights for the first time in decades, reversing a long-standing pedestrian-only policy, paired with expanded sidewalks, fencing and rubber curbs. The police chief’s reasoning was that closing the road to through traffic wasn’t keeping people safe and that the closures had created a “street party.” Officials say allowing traffic back has helped disperse crowds, making it easier for officers to monitor and respond, and early data showed use-of-force incidents down 50 percent and officer injuries down from 14 to 4. The caveat: a year later, an Austin Current review of police data showed violent crime in the district was essentially flat — 78 incidents in 2025 versus 67 in 2024, and some bar owners reported sales declines they attributed to the traffic and sidewalk changes.
Early data suggest opening Sixth Street to traffic has improved public safety – Austin Monitor +6

Entertainment-district curfews for minors (Kansas City, Oklahoma City)
This is the tool that most directly targets the underage-loiterer problem Bauman describes. Kansas City has run a seasonal ordinance since a shooting at the Country Club Plaza in 2011: anyone under 18 must be accompanied by a parent after 9 p.m. in five entertainment districts including Westport and downtown, with detention of the minor and fines up to $500 for parents. Police say they’re not carding everyone — officers focus on troublemakers rather than stopping everyone who looks underage. Westport also layers on private measures: a private security company patrols the Community Improvement District, and there’s weapons screening between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays from April through October, with the area inside the checkpoint becoming a pedestrian-only zone for people 21 and over. It hasn’t eliminated shootings, though — the mayor himself said turning public sidewalk into private space was never the long-term cure. Oklahoma City took a similar path, proposing a 9 p.m. curfew for unaccompanied minors in Bricktown, two hours earlier than the citywide limit.
Kansas City’s summer curfew is back ahead of Memorial Day weekend +5

“Snap” curfews (Chicago)
Chicago’s version gives police discretion instead of a fixed hour. The ordinance, passed 27-22, allows the superintendent to declare curfews in public areas where there are unauthorized mass gatherings of teenagers, with as little as 30 minutes’ notice. It’s been politically contested: Mayor Johnson vetoed it, saying it would create tension between residents and police, and a revised version was back before the council in January 2026. Critics there make the same argument you’ll hear in Milwaukee — that safe places for teens like teen clubs have disappeared, and malls and Navy Pier now require escorts, so the gatherings move to the street.
Chicago City Council approves ‘snap curfew’ ordinance | Courthouse News Service +4

Regulating the venues themselves (Seattle, Long Beach)
Seattle went after after-hours lounges specifically: the proposed ordinance requires lounges operating after 2 a.m. to maintain two security guards, have video surveillance, draft a safety plan and allow police entry, with fines starting at $1,000 and escalating to $5,000. Long Beach is considering a tiered entertainment-district model where businesses open past midnight face the strictest requirements — security wanding, no new entry after 1 a.m., and coordination across all late-night establishments. Vancouver tried a related “last entry” rule: bars stop admitting new customers at 2 a.m. while those inside can stay until 3, to stagger when crowds hit the streets.
City unveils new safety regulations proposal for late night lounges +3

Earlier closing times (Macon, Atlanta)
Macon-Bibb voted 5-4 to require bars to close at 2 a.m. rather than 3; the mayor argued the extra hour encouraged noncustomers to loiter around bars. Atlanta’s Buckhead Village is the cautionary tale here: after officials approved earlier closing times and got more restrictive with liquor licenses, the number of clubs steadily dropped and the district’s ecosystem weakened — the strip is now mixed-use high-rises. That’s essentially the outcome Bauman is predicting for Water Street.
Macon, Georgia, sets earlier bar curfew in effort to stem overnight crime +2

Full-scale crackdown (Miami Beach)
The most aggressive model. Miami Beach’s spring break “breakup” used curfews, bag checks, restricted beach access, DUI checkpoints, $100 parking and heavy enforcement. It worked on the violence metric — no shootings and no stampedes, and felony arrests down 26% — but businesses said it went too far; one nightclub reported half a million dollars in lost revenue, and the city has fielded accusations of racially biased policing.
More than 270 arrested in spring break crack-down in Miami Beach, authorities say +2

What this suggests for Milwaukee

Three things stand out. First, nobody has found a legislative fix that works without police capacity behind it — Austin, Kansas City and Miami Beach all paired their ordinances with heavier deployment, which is exactly the constraint Bauman says MPD can’t meet. Second, the cities that got traction on the specific problem in the article (underage crowds that aren’t patrons) used tools aimed at that population — district-specific minor curfews and controlled-entry zones — rather than tools aimed at vendors. Milwaukee has none of those on the table right now. Third, every approach carried a cost: business losses in Austin and Miami Beach, civil-liberties fights in Chicago, and the slow death of the district in Buckhead. Bauman’s “days are numbered” comment reads less like resignation and more like an accurate description of the Buckhead path, which is where a district ends up when the only thing a city can do is wait it out.

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