A 23-year-old man suffered injuries after he was involved in a fight with a Montana man outside Wando’s early Wednesday morning.
Around 1:30 a.m., Marc Grewe, 24, of Great Falls, Mont., knocked the victim onto the ground and proceeded to punch him several more times. The victim was from Lodi, a small town 10 minutes north of Madison.
Capt. Mary Schauf of the Madison Police Department said bar fights are not a new trend but added the recent homicide outside the Plaza tavern last week was unique.
The area in the central district where police see the most alcohol-related violent crime is in the corridor including the lower part of State, Frances, University, Lake and Johnson streets.
Despite the area being largely a student area, most of those crimes are not committed by University of Wisconsin students, said Ald. Eli Judge, District 8.
“The Madison Police Department has found that half — if not more than half — of all the violent crime in the downtown area around bar time is caused by non-UW students or out-of-towners,” Judge said.
Marsh Shapiro, Tavern League representative to the Alcohol License Review Board and owner of the Nitty Gritty, said many bar fights involve people not from the Madison area because they do not always know the rules of the establishment.
Jay Bob Immel, a bouncer at Wando’s, said he had never seen either of the two men before and the fight occurred outside of the bar.
“To tell you the truth, this is the first time we’ve had a bar fight at Wando’s for a long time,” Immel said. “If people want to fight, you really can’t stop them.”
Schauf said the police work with the bars by offering a tavern safety program to teach security staff ways to diffuse problems.
“Taverns have a responsibility to their patrons,” Schauf said. “The greatest harms are really caused by over-serving.”
According to Schauf, house parties are where most over-serving occurs because these parties are essentially operating as “illegal taverns” with an “all you can drink” fee.
Judge said the argument is double-sided because police are trying to stop the problem of binge drinking by restricting the number of liquor licenses in the downtown area under the Alcohol Density Ordinance, which he said pushes people back to house parties.
“I personally think that one of the best things the police department can do is have a visible presence downtown,” Judge said.
Schauf explained alcohol-related violent crime spikes at bar time for multiple reasons, including late-night food stops and groups walking home from house parties.
“The sidewalk can only hold so many people,” Schauf said, adding these fights start out as low-level fights over things like bumping into someone, and then “words turn to punches, punches turn to more punches.”
As part of the Downtown Safety Initiative, police increase patrols in the downtown area during bar time Thursday through Saturday Schauf said.
“We try to target that visible street-level violence,” Schauf said. “The idea is to intercept the behavior while it’s still a disorderly conduct and before it escalates to violent crime.”
