Downtown Corbin could benefit from extra foot patrols

Downtown Corbin isn’t what it once was when I was kid when you still had downtown department stores and it was a hub for local shopping, whether it was clothing or furniture.

It isn’t what it was when I started in journalism about 30 years ago after most of the downtown retail shopping had moved elsewhere, and there were at least a few empty store fronts.

Unlike many other small cities, things didn’t stay that way in Corbin’s downtown.

In 2003, Corbin voters approved alcohol by the drink sales at restaurants that made at least 70 percent of their proceeds from food sales.

In many ways this was the beginning of a downtown revitalization for Corbin as locally owned restaurants would start opening up in formerly empty store fronts.

In February 2012, Corbin voters approved expanded alcohol sales in the form of packaged alcohol sales and alcohol sales at bars.

In the 10 years since that happened, downtown Corbin has flourished and has become a model for downtown revitalization. 

If you go to downtown Corbin many evenings, you will see quite a bit of activity. On most Friday and Saturday nights, Main Street is hopping with people enjoying the night life and having a good time.

You have to take the good with the bad though and with progress often come problems.

In early September, a brawl took place on Main Street across the street from Austin City Saloon involving 8-10 people. One person was injured to the extent that they had to be flown out by emergency medical helicopter. Corbin police are still investigating and reviewing security camera and cellphone footage.

The fight resulted in a window at Seasons Restaurant being busted. More than two weeks later it was still boarded up.

Suffice it to say that this has been a black eye for the city and steps need to be taken and keep this kind of thing from happening again.

One good way of preventing this or at least dramatically lessening the chances of it happening again would be to increase police presence in downtown Corbin on Friday and Saturday nights. By increased presence, I mean having a couple of officers out walking a beat on Main Street and along Depot Street and Kentucky Avenue where many people park until after everything closes for the night.

Many a fight, youthful indiscretion and other assortments of misappropriate behavior have certainly been curtailed by someone uttering the words, “knock it off. There’s a cop coming.”

Everyone’s first reaction when they are driving on the interstate is to slow down when they see a police car in the median, and then look down at their speedometer to see how fast they are going and whether they were speeding.

I’m suggesting something similar with the foot patrols.

This isn’t a knock on the job that the Corbin Police Department is doing. It is a suggestion that the Corbin City Commission allocate a few more dollars to public safety in order to ramp up weekend patrols by using alcohol tax proceeds.

Regular patrols of parking lots on weekends also would dramatically reduce the risk of vehicle break-ins and so forth when would be criminals see police walking by every few minutes.

Visible foot patrols by police could also partially address another problem that Corbin leaders have discussed in recent years, which is people driving too fast down Main Street especially at night when lots of people are around.

Again, if people see a police officer out on the street then they are more likely to at least slow down when driving by.