The Memphis City Council called Tuesday, Aug. 22, for the Shelby County Sheriff’ s Office to be a permanent part of a new Downtown safety plan.

The resolution by council chairman Martavius Jones and council vice chairman JB Smiley Jr. asking the Memphis Police Department to request permanent cooperation from Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner Jr. was approved by the council on a 10-0 vote.

“What do we have to do … to have sheriff’s deputies down there as long as we have an entertainment district?” Jones asked during a Tuesday committee session, which reviewed the new plan for the area on and around Beale Street.

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The plan was activated for the first time over the Aug. 18-20 weekend, following a Sunday, Aug. 13, shooting incident where eight people were wounded a block north of Beale Street. It blocks some streets to auto traffic around Beale and allows for limited access to parking garages, hotels and other businesses.

Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn “C.J.” Davis says sheriff’s deputies are temporary and being used to “shore up” MPD’s presence until permanent police assignments are made for the effort. 

“I am a permanent taxpayer of Shelby County,” Jones replied.

Davis said any decision about the future use of deputies depends on Bonner.

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She also said the new plan is a permanent feature of the Downtown nightlife.

“What we’ve had in the past has really been sort of these pop-up operations,” she said. “This is not a pop-up operation. This is the new normal.”

For now, Memphis Police are relying on temporary police assignments until the MPD can make those assignments permanent.

That includes assigning police on the 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift to the entertainment district. Before, officers typically left the area around 1:30 a.m. or 2 a.m.

Bonner told council members that he is willing to assign officers to bolster the plan. He also said he had not been part of the planning for the new approach even though the plan outlined last week involved the use of sheriff’s deputies this past weekend.

“We’re all in favor and we will make it work,” Bonner told the council before Tuesday’s vote. “We have not gotten the plans yet and we’ve not been invited to the table yet. ... This conversation needs to go a little bit further than Downtown.”

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Smiley pressed Bonner on the point of a permanent SCSO presence — “sustained on a permanent basis.”

“I think the role of government is pretty clear to me — to provide for the general welfare of the people,” Smiley said.

“We have some challenges — communication and car vehicles,” Bonner replied. “But we can get past that. We’ll work with MPD along with THP (Tennessee Highway Patrol) to accomplish this goal that all of us want to see.”

Other features of the adaptable MPD-Downtown Memphis Commission plan include issuing warnings to Beale Street businesses that play loud music outside their entrances after a certain hour.

Davis described it as “creating a block party atmosphere” that encourages large crowds, particularly after midnight.

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In the case of the Historic Daisy Theater — also known as the Old Daisy — a bar is set up outside the entrance with loud music playing and no access to the building’s interior.

“I play music because that is the only way I can sustain the building,” Historic Daisy owner Lucille Catron told council members Tuesday. “We had no choice but to come up with an idea — music.”

Catron is the head of the Beale Street Development Corp., which originally oversaw the district for the city.

That ended with an agreement in which the Historic Daisy was to be used as an interpretive center. Catron claims the city owes her money. The theater is rented out for banquets and private parties — a use that is forbidden in the agreement with the city during the administration of then-Mayor A C Wharton.

The DMC, which runs the city-owned district, is also using new walk-through metal detectors that can detect weapons without patrons having to empty their pockets or be wanded with hand-held devices.

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DMC President and CEO Paul Young told the council his agency has also worked to install perimeter lighting on parking lots and other areas just outside the entertainment district to eliminate dark spots and discourage gatherings.

“It’s lit up like a football field,” Young said.

The DMC has also put up features on the fences surrounding Handy Park that make them more difficult to climb, and thus harder to avoid metal detectors and other security features after 10 p.m. on weekends.

Council member Chase Carlisle pushed Young and the DMC for more features, including two types of wristbands that identify those allowed on the street after 10 p.m. and those who might be violating the city’s curfew.

“That’s one of the problems, is the barricades come up at 8 p.m.,” he said. “People are aware of that and they will get on the street before that. A large number of them are not going into clubs or deter those who want to go in.”

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“The DMC’s got to take a more proactive role,” Carlisle said, adding that the commission should “start enforcing their leases” that govern how Beale Street businesses handle crowds and the atmosphere they create.

Davis said new Beale Street Merchants Association leadership led to abandoning previous summer season security measures including cover charges on weekend nights after 10 p.m.

She referred to it as “an internal sort of effort to try something new that did not work.”

“This is a permanent solution to a space that we want to continue to be one that is attractive for people to come to, but limit some of the egregious behavior that was going on,” Davis told the council.

That approach includes talking to owners of private parking lots surrounding Beale Street to get them to do more to discourage gathering crowds and the ensuing pop-up parties.