Maybe a little bitterness has been seeping into my usually-high-spirited dining adventures recently, but as one who has lived in the Greater New Haven area for much of his life, I don’t like seeing it becoming less welcoming. And the target of my wrath is The Havens.
Well, not North Haven, which I can only fault for providing minimal dining temptation beyond chain restaurants (you can find me at the lone remaining North Haven Friendly’s about once a week). And not South Haven, which doesn’t exist because it would have to be in Long Island Sound.
But New Haven, which boasts Connecticut’s best dining scene, has elected to install parking meters that run till nine o’clock at night. For an estimated $300,000 in additional revenue in town coffers, how much dining and other business will be redirected to other towns due to the added expense and hassle that visitors must factor in? You won’t see Mayor John DeStefano or his administration publishing that figure! Some media, especially NEWS 8, have provided coverage of this issue that seems hugely tilted toward the City, showing interviews of Yale students (how many of them even have vehicles?) and even a few business owners who don’t object to the changes. But the new meters have already made me think twice when making dining plans—and I know plenty of people who say the same thing.
The city gains, but the businesses it serves lose. New Haven borders six towns, none of which gather parking revenue aggressively. People from those surrounding towns will be more inclined to dine local. Some New Haveners may even head out of town to dine more often. Look to towns like Hamden and Orange to benefit.
And then, sadly, there’s East Haven, where I lived for a period and where my older daughter attended school and recently became a home owner. The Town of East Haven has a well-documented aversion to non-whites that starts at City Hall and filters down through its police department. The Malik Jones tragedy may be 15 years in the rear view mirror, but Latinos, who now constitute ten percent of the population, aren’t finding the Town much more hospitable. Honestly put, East Haven is afraid of becoming West Haven. After heroic Reverend James Manship of Saint Rose of Lima Catholic Church in Fair Haven (part of New Haven) videoptaped East Haven police abuses and brought the situation to light, a federal investigation of the police force for racial profiling abuses has held the town up to widespread ridicule.
Knowing as many East Haveners as I do, I don’t believe the views of East Haven brass accurately reflect the townsfolk. Plenty of East Haven residents hold more progressive views than their public servants. They certainly recognize that diversity has been good for the East Haven dining scene, producing nice Spanish, Korean, Latin American and other restaurants that draw business from surrounding communities. But in a modern version of “Let them eat cake!” insensitivity, East Haven Mayor Joseph Maturo, asked what he was doing for the Latino community, proclaimed “I might have tacos!”
And finally, there’s clueless West Haven, where lack of diversity, at least, is not a problem. But on a May visit to check out a used car early in the evening, my friend and I were stunned to see hundreds of high-spirited youth engaged in a bar crawl, and while their behavior was tolerable, it was clear that there was great potential for problems later in the evening. Reports of increases in beach crime that struck the evening news a few days later seemed predictable.
So what’s the right response to such problems? Certainly not what a friend and I experienced on June 1. With a seven o’clock reservation at Sushi X on Captain Thomas Boulevard, my friend and I decided to take the scenic route along Beach Street. Rounding the corner onto Washington Avenue, West Haven police officers on foot directed us to pull over onto California Street. I felt relaxed, because I knew everything was kosher.
“Is this a random stop or did we do something wrong?” I asked pleasantly.
“Yes, it’s random. Well, actually, do you hear your muffler?” Officer Young responded.
The muffler had recently become slightly louder than normal, not really noticeable. While we were waiting, other vehicles were pulled over, including a spanking new pickup truck with lightly tinted windows. Ten minutes after being pulled over, I was released not with a gentle verbal reminder but an actual warning ticket for a defective exhaust system that requires proof of completed repairs within 20 days! It seemed excessive and unnecessary.
Clearly the West Haven police weren’t performing a friendly seatbelt check or pulling drunks off the road but were engaged in a fishing exhibition for anything they could find. Here are the categories on the warning ticket for defective equipment: brakes, tires, horn, exhaust system, vehicle suspension, steering mechanism, windshield wiper, windshield, tinted glass, header board, head lights, tail lights, signal lights, misc. lights, stop lights, other glazing, mirror, markers obscured, obscured vision, excessive smoke, other (specify). As my wife later observed, if they want to find something, they will. Imagine getting ticketed for a chip on the windshield, tires that are getting worn, or a window sticker.
We showed up for our reservation a quarter of an hour late and in a ruined mood, having almost changed our mind about dining out. The dining room of Sushi X turned out to be buzzing with the subject. Several others had been pulled over and ticketed too. I initially planned to take a photograph of the police trap after dinner and post it, but my friend wisely pointed out that doing so might land me a driving while distracted ticket (taking the photograph) or a post-sake breathalyzer test.
It wasn’t lost on me that this was my second rough experience in West Haven in a row! It’s difficult not to take these things a little personally. An enthusiastic reporter dedicated to his mission to cover the Connecticut food scene, I expend great amounts of my limited time and money to promote towns’ dining scenes, and I wind up getting treated like this! (Another town to watch out for—Newtown!)
Of course, it doesn’t have to be this way. Coincidentally, here’s a photo I shot earlier the same day of my hometown Hamden police actually being helpful (what a concept!). The female driver appears to have ignored a sound coming from her left front wheel too long.
So New Haven is busy squeezing every last drop of money possible out of visitors, East Haven is harassing people who are of color or who speak English as a second language, and West Haven, a town that struggles to attract business from other towns, is unapologetically setting up traffic checks in the heart of the shoreline restaurant district and nickel-and-diming people to death. Charming. Feel free to call these towns up and question their policies before spending your monies within their borders.
And why should businesses in these towns suffer? The answer is, they shouldn’t, and I would encourage them to get more involved politically and to let their town governments hear their opinions. But they may be afraid of retaliation in the form of increased inspections or harassment of their staff.
Let me finish with photos of our all-you-can-eat meal at Sushi X that explain why it might still be worth braving these risks. Maybe the West Haven police will try to arrest me for food porn.
Sushi X, 220 Captain Thomas Boulevard, West Haven; 203-933-2888