Some Boiseans love bike bars. Others loathe them. What’s next for the controversial rides
One Boise man, fed up with “bike bars,” the mostly human-powered trolleys where riders drink alcohol while pedaling through Boise’s streets, decided to do something about it.
The unnamed resident of Bannock Street took a video of one pedaling past his downtown apartment. And, while he recorded himself, he threw water balloons at them as the party drove underneath his window. When he decided that wasn’t safe, he opted instead to use a water gun to soak the patrons below him.
He recorded the whole thing on video and sent it to the city of Boise.
“That’s just the level of discontent that some residents have with these operations,” explained Craig Croner, who works in the City Clerk’s Office, to the Boise City Council on Tuesday.
Bike bars have been around since 2012. They were originally used mostly for people on pub crawls. In 2013, the council changed the city code to permit alcohol on bike bars, allowing for them to be used as they often are today: a way to travel around Boise while drinking beer or wine.
Patrons must bring their own alcohol on the rides. The trolleys have motors to help them get started but are mostly powered by riders pedaling. The bike bars are generally pretty slow as a result — one of Boiseans’ biggest complaints about them. The bike bars slow traffic, particularly during peak hours, and will sometimes park where it is not legal, causing headaches for drivers trying to move around them.
Boiseans have also complained that the bars, which often play music as they drive around, create excessive noise as they drive past — regardless of the time of day. People on the bike bars also sometimes engage in what Croner called “drunk and disorderly conduct,” including falling off, high-fiving nearby drivers, publicly urinating or jumping into fountains.
Now, city officials seek to figure out what to do to try to prevent people from getting frustrated or even hurt.
Croner presented three potential ideas for handling the bike bars: keeping them as is, taking away licenses, or modifying existing laws to put limits on the bike bars and their patrons.
Council members offered differing takes.
Holli Woodings said she favored reworking the existing ordinance. T.J. Thomson also preferred that, saying he opposes eliminating the bars.
Lisa Sánchez favored eliminating them, citing safety concerns, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Patrick Bageant said he favors considering the bars’ removal, because of the disruption they cause.
“My general attitude is that you should be able to do whatever you want as long as you’re not bothering other people,” Bageant said. “These things are almost custom-made to bother everybody else to the maximum extent possible.”
Elaine Clegg, the council’s president, said patrons drinking alcohol while on the bike bars make the vehicles “more disruptive,” as does the amplified noise. She favored a “middle-ground solution that gets them back to what they were when they were first introduced.”
Jimmy Hallyburton, who runs the Boise Bicycle Project and said he felt he had to weigh in because he is “the bike guy,” asked whether the city had ever issued tickets to the bike bars for illegal parking or other violations.
Croner said yes, but after the tickets are paid, the same types of behavior recur. “The police have had instances where they’ve tried to get them to turn down the noise, and it works for a day or two,” Croner told the council. “And then, you know, two days later they’re right back.”
Croner’s presentation came during a council work session, so council members took no vote. It may vote on changes to the ordinance later.
Hallyburton proposed putting restrictions on the bike bars during peak hours, which downtown are generally from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m., and eliminating amplified noise. Hallyburton wondered whether that would still allow the bike bars to be a viable business.
“I used to joke around during my campaign that if you wanted to win an election, all you had to do was campaign that you’d get rid of the bike bars, because everybody seemed to dislike them unless they were on them,” said Hallyburton, who was elected to his first term in November. “Then you seem to be having the best time in the entire world. I’ve never seen anybody ride and it not have a tremendous time.”
This story was originally published August 18, 2020 at 5:27 PM.
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