Cleburger

I get where you're coming from Heights, but in this instance I'd have to say it's not a reoccurring instance of the same club week in and week out. If it became that, well then certainly there would be a similar sort of demand for action.

None of the fighting was done in the clubs--it all happened in the streets. Sounds like a very brazen group of so-called "tough guys" from Boston. I wonder how tough they'll be in the country lock up with their "sexy" little accents? ;)

Pretty cool. I hope the port makes their $850,000 per month nut on that charter though! I'm surprised a public body was allowed to do such a thing?

I'm still not sold on any of these. This is our official city center. Where commerce, culture, and commuters clash. Most of these designs remind me of something that would be put in between phases I & II of Crocker Park, not the center of a major city. Has there been any discussion of who would maintain this? I would not leave such a park to the city. Hopefully DCP would handle the maintenance?

I just spent a week in Dallas. Their downtown is D.E.A.D. More vacant and boarded up storefronts than I could count, and their office vacancy rate is somewhere around 25%. I got kicked out of a bar at 10 pm because they were closing. Except for the light rail lines running through the middle, downtown Cleveland blows it out of the water in a huge way. If the "build it and they will come" approach doesn't even work in one of the most robust metro economies in the nation, why should we think that it would fare any better here? You could argue that Gateway is further proof of that, or that Gateway is part of the piecemeal approach that Cleveland has been using to successfully revitalize its downtown. Either way, those arguments are rather academic at this point because like it or not, the facilities got built, and now we have to figure out how to pay for their upkeep. You are correct about downtown Dallas, which has always been mainly commercial/office space. I was thinking more of Uptown and Victory Park than downtown. Downtown Dallas has seen spurts of residential creeping in as well, and will surely continue to grow as a 24 hour area as the surrounding neighborhoods do.

Time for the offseason predictions!

Look at the Flats East Bank. How many years has it taken to get it to where it stands currently? Open real estate does not make demand. You can't build it and they will come....if that's true downtown Cleveland, and Cleveland in general, as ACRES of available real estate. Not in large parcels, right in downtown business district. Good analogy on the Flats East Bank. To be fair, they were ready to roll back in 2008 and got lambasted by the recession. Had to go back to square 1 which cost them 3 years. Then compare our one little FEB development to a market like Dallas, which also lived through the recession. At one point they had 2/3 of the cranes in North America there. The skyline has changed more in the last 8 years than Cleveland has in the last 40.

Look at the Flats East Bank. How many years has it taken to get it to where it stands currently? Open real estate does not make demand. You can't build it and they will come....if that's true downtown Cleveland, and Cleveland in general, as ACRES of available real estate. So are stadiums the lowest common denominator? Maybe. But their are a piece of the bigger economic puzzle. I repeat--that I am not with the sports team owners. I feel a better deal needs to be cut. I also laugh at the usual American waste of building taxpayer financed stadiums that over the last 20 years had to become single-sport (no more multi-use football/baseball facilities). But that's today's world and Cleveland has done a good job in competing in it. So we should be questioning our leaders on how the sin tax money is going to be spent, and how they are going to attract new jobs to the area that leads to the developments you're hoping for. We have the sports teams. We have the arts and culture. We have higher education. We have plenty of available, affordable housing. We have world class health care. We have a suitable airport that is under-capacity. What we need is our 1950's jobs (or the modern version of them) back. With that will come population, and new development.

That's just a little too SIM City for me. If a downtown office developer wanted to build a 100 story tower on Public Square but needed incentives to do it, all they would have to do is ask. Somewhere our leaders would find some money or tax breaks for them. The problem is there isn't demand for it in today's Cleveland. Sure we can use a tax to build some new office development, but all it will be doing is shifting offices from one building to another, not bringing in outsiders. At least the stadiums bring in Susie Suburbs and her kids to the Indians games (probably the only time she ventures in from Medina County, and has to be able to park in the Gateway garage or else she ain't coming!).

Good article. This stat shocked me: "A staggering 90 percent of our gross domestic product and 86 percent of our jobs are generated in 3 percent of the continental United States, namely our cities."

^^effective argument. Agree 100%.

As I read more posts on this obviously volatile subject, it reminds me what a strange place America can be. Sports are just a microcosm of this sort of community-vs-community behavior that plagues our nation. The factories of cities like Detroit, Cleveland, and Buffalo have been lured away to places like Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee, through various tax schemes and the politics of those localities. We are held hostage by our sports team owners, who always have the option of taking a better deal elsewhere, where the local community is willing to collectively get on their knees for the owners. Plutocracy knows no shame. From my world travels I would surmise that this behavior happens elsewhere in the modernized world, just not nearly to the degree that it happens here. Can you imagine if another city in the UK offered to build a better stadium for Manchester United? It would never even make it to the conversation, let alone close to reality!

But if you take it away and replace it with a per-ticket tax, it will only move the sin tax money into a different sect of the wealthiest in the community (the restaurant and bar owners, grocery chains, and beer/liquor distributors). It won't do anything more for those poor folks still paying that extra nickel for a pack of Kools. And it will put game tickets even further out of reach of the lower earners in our community. That to me is a lose-lose.

1.9 cents on a can of beer, 1.5 cents per ounce of liquor, and 4.5 cents on a pack of cigarettes The facilities fee of $3.25 per ticket would replace the same revenue without using public funds. The hundreds of millions of dollars saved could either be pocketed by the citizenry (no new tax) or used for some other purpose ( support infrastructure, economic development, public health, education, etc). Being the devils (owners) advocate here--I would argue against this because it's impossible to predict revenue. At least with the sin tax they can be assured that their minimums would be covered. But what if the Indians attendance goes in the cellar again (not an unfathomable concept). Suddenly they lose that $3.25 per ticket. But no matter how tough times get in Cleveland, people will still be buying their cigarettes and beer. What needs to happen is extend the sin tax, but put someone in charge of the books, and someone in charge of negotiating with the teams. Make Dan Gilbert buy his own toilet paper and light bulbs.

Take the same land, tax incentives & subsidies applied to the stadiums and build an office park at Gateway where the arenas are or mixed use development where Browns stadium is. Think about the long term jobs created, the income & real estate taxes generated... Think about attracting major corporations back to the city like Progressive Insurance or American Greetings or Eaton. Think about the spinoff development that would be created by the job centers of these developments.... the restaurants, shopping, apartments... so much more than what is generated by these stadiums that aren't even used half the year You give those kind of taxpayer funded incentives to a privately held firm like American Greetings and I'm sure everyone from the Tea Party to the ACLU would find fault. The difference here is the arenas and stadiums are deemed public use. Anyone can buy a ticket. Anyone can choose to attend an event. Whether or not they can afford to is a different story, but the buildings themselves are not being furnished for a private company.

I wouldn't bet on that assumption. Especially when it comes to something like smokes, that people are addicted to and will buy no matter what. I don't like assumptions at all. That's why I feel our best bet is to keep the sin tax, and use it as a negotiating tool with the owners to cut ourselves a better deal. The old regime is gone. Dimora and co gave away the house. Now it's time to retool the numbers, and have a solid plan for the 21st century, one that doesn't include Dan Gilbert sending the taxpayers and invoice for some light bulbs and toilet paper.

True, but would you rather that nickel go to the bar owner or the sports team owner? Which is more likely to spend that nickel in Cleveland? If the sports team owner pulls out how many more people does he employ than the bar owner? Consider the payroll taxes on just the Browns alone.... If the Browns moved again, would everyone currently spending $50+ per ticket (not to mention food, t-shirts, etc) suddenly decide to just put their cash in a big pile at the 50 yard line at First Energy stadium and have a bonfire? I'd wager they'd spend that money on other entertainment options in the area, thus having no significant negative effect on either payroll taxes or the local economy. While your assertion is probably true to a degree, it would be hard to add up data to support it. My guess is there would be a net loss because I personally know plenty of Browns fans who reside outside the county and ONLY venture into Cleveland 10 days a year (more if there are playoff games). Beyond that they have no interest in attending any other events, eating at the restaurants, etc. A vast majority of them are anti-Cleveland. I'm sure you know a few of these types.... On the other hand, we could sit down and figure out the payroll taxes generated by the Browns and their employees, the other 10 NFL teams that play games in Cleveland and pay taxes here. We could figure out the additional hotel revenue generated on game days. We can figure the additional landing fees when there are 25 jets parked at BKL on game day. And so on.... I am on your side in pushing back on the sports owners and making them ante up a fairer share. But the reality of sports financing today is there are any given number of markets dying for a pro franchise, and all ready to drop their pants and give the owners what they want. That puts the owners in a pretty strong negotiating position. So my question to the anti-sin tax people is: should we be fighting the sin tax, or should we be fighting how the money is spent and accounted for?

True, but would you rather that nickel go to the bar owner or the sports team owner? Which is more likely to spend that nickel in Cleveland? If the sports team owner pulls out how many more people does he employ than the bar owner? Consider the payroll taxes on just the Browns alone....

There have been more than one who have required a validated registration with your true identity before allowing comments. That cuts down on about 99% of the peanut gallery of morons, bigots and zealouts, many of whom are not even from the local area. I believe the Buffalo News did this awhile back.

Wow 1/2 the ridership on St Pats. Can't be just the weather difference, can it?

E Rocc you are not alone. My grandmother used to tell me her sisters, who were Slovenian nuns, turned her on the combination. It's not widely known, but trust me you'll love it.

Deep fried? That sounds great! My mother grew up in a Slovenian home and turned me on the the delicacy of Kielbasa. A good fresh roll, with some cream cheese and a little ketchup. Still one of my all time favorites!

Once again to remind you, what they don't want you to know is they already tack "facility fees" on to the ticket price. So adding a "facility fee" on to the ticket price to make up for the sin tax will only expose their current manipulation of the system and make them rework ticket prices. On the other hand, and to borrow from the editorial writer's analogy, the poor guy at the end of the bar who cannot afford Browns tickets, or a steak dinner with the ala carte baked potato, will still pay the $2.50 for his Bud Lite. The owner of the bar won't give him a break on the sin tax and give him his nickel back. So he can't afford the game, or a steak, and still pays the same for his crap beer and smokes. So the little guy loses no matter what, and the guys controlling the money in the country will still walk away richer. And life goes on....

I've held this same opinion all along. The only place it will matter is at the retail level. At your local bar or restaurant, that $3 Bud will still remain $3.

Not sure about the Indians and Browns, but the Q already charges facility fees on concerts and events. I wonder who's pocket that is going into?