The Public Safety Review Committee addressed concerns regarding alcohol enforcement in the downtown area Tuesday.

Madison Police Department Capt. Mary Schauf detailed aspects of MPD’s policy and plans for enforcing alcohol laws, both for licensed establishments and for unregulated house parties.

Schauf said the policing of bars and house parties is critical in crime prevention, as alcohol consumption is related to crime spikes downtown.

“We can tie the level of intoxication at bar time directly to the crime that we have,” Schauf said. “There are certain behaviors at bars that lead to impacts to the city — drunk driving, sexual assaults and fights.”

Schauf added the police search for specific problems when conducting bar safety checks and looking into unregulated house parties. The main concerns are overcrowding a space and overconsumption of alcohol.

Schauf said the police do not randomly target people and give them citations.

“The first thing is for people who choose to consume: If your behavior is such that you are attracting attention, we will be happy to give you attention,” Schauf said.

Ald. Bryon Eagon, District 8, and former District 8 Ald. Eli Judge relayed some concerns from the community regarding alcohol enforcement and asked for clarification for the impetus for police actions.

Judge said he wanted some light shed on the concerns of the over-policing of certain taverns and said he has had direct experience with a six-person police team spending a long time checking IDs in a bar that was under capacity.

“I was generally concerned. … Where could that staff time have been spent elsewhere?” Judge said.

The police responsible for checking taverns and preventing crimes downtown travel as a team, Schauf said. They are a “package deal.”

Joel Plant, assistant to the Mayor Dave Cieslewicz, said data on downtown policing points to the police spending about 17 percent of the time inside taverns, with the other time spent doing other police work.

“We want that visible presence on the street,” Schauf said. “Most of the [police’s] time is spent outside of taverns.”

Schauf also said the police do not spend hours at any one establishment and the bar checks are somewhat systematic.

She added police are sent out and told “go out and try to be fair,” with the intent of checking every bar in the area at least once a year.

“If ‘place A’ has no violations, than there’s really not a lot of reason to come back to ‘place A,'” Schauf said.

According to Schauf, if an inspection of “place B” yields violations, than a written notice is given to the owner or senior manager and the police will come back to the establishment to check on the progress.

Schauf said some tavern owners are “chronic abusers” and therefore will be given more attention since the police in the downtown area are a limited resource.