If it’s not safe to go out after hours in downtown Sacramento then our city is in trouble

Following the mass shooting that killed six and injured 12, Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg told us that the worst crime in city history shouldn’t make us afraid to return to the downtown streets, where 100 shell casings were fired by what police believe were multiple gunmen.

“We’re just getting back our legs and our momentum and I want to encourage people to come down; come down, y’know, for a (Kings) game,” Steinberg said. “Come down for a concert. Come down to eat. Don’t stay out till 2 in the morning. But come on down.”

Excuse me? Don’t stay out until 2 in the morning? Did Steinberg just say the quiet part out loud and admit that the city government and Sacramento Police can no longer maintain the safety in downtown Sacramento after hours?

Does it mean that young people in Sacramento can no longer do what young people do in other cities — stay out late with friends at bars and restaurants? Have we somehow transitioned from strict COVID restrictions into a tacit acceptance that young people can’t go out late at night in Sacramento, as young people do all over the world, without fear of being shot to death?

That can’t be what Sacramento has become.

Steinberg was clearly shaken by the tragic events of Sunday, many of us were. But if his words were an acknowledgment of reality, rather than an emotional slip of the tongue, then our city is in trouble.

Consumers have been told over and over again that downtown Sacramento is the place to be, the place to spend our money. The construction of Golden 1 Center symbolized renewal in Sacramento’s urban core, only to be stymied by a global virus. Our city’s leaders have begged us to get back out there and be good shoppers.

Bars, restaurants, shops and entertainment line the K Street corridor, welcoming people of all ages but specifically targeting the Millennial age group and strategically staying open into the late hours to accommodate these patrons. K Street is a beacon of economic vitality for our city, but after dark, it becomes a prime example of targeted advertising to a young, prosperous, vibrant crowd of clientele.

Go out, but don’t go out at 2 a.m.?

The days of staying up until 2 a.m. with friends may be long past for Mayor Steinberg, but they are not for many, including me. I may have been asleep in my bed that Sunday morning, but I have spent many nights walking K Street with friends, enjoying the bars, singing karaoke, or just wandering around after a Kings game at Golden 1 Center, just down the street from where the shooting occurred.

Young people have spent two long years holed up in a pandemic only to be rushed along at the finish line, told we must put our health at risk for the sake of the economy, and then pressured into providing patronage in local economic corridors exactly like K Street.

Please, do not blame the victims for being out at night, doing precisely what our city leaders have told us to do: Spending our money and revitalizing our city’s economy.

If Mayor Steinberg wants Sacramentans to feel faith again in the safety of downtown Sacramento, then that safety must be assured at 2 a.m. in crowds of young adults just as much as it is at 2 p.m., in crowds of children and families.

Anything less is false advertising.

This story was originally published April 6, 2022 at 5:30 AM.