The Seahawk

Issue date: 12/2/09 Section: News

Media Credit: David Scard

Although downtown Wilmington thrives with people at night, it is not a place where you want to be stuck after two in the morning. A college student, Lauren Dehart, experienced the deserted downtown area one night, when she and her friend were unable to find a cab home.

"It was a dead zone, except for the occasional drunk stumbling by mumbling some pick-up line," Dehart stated. As the hour grew on, Dehart was able to reach one of her friends to pick them up at 3 a.m., but she says the experience, "taught her about the chaos of downtown Wilmington."

Lorena Brice, a taxi driver for the city of Wilmington, said, "There are so many taxi's clustered downtown, and then all the people decide to leave at the same time. That's where the taxi problem starts." Brice also expressed how she feels the taxi stand solution would help the downtown nightlife.

A solution that was proposed to help the taxi problem was to create a taxi stand. The first time this idea was tested out was on Oct. 30 and 31, and the taxi stand was set up in the 100 and 200 blocks of Princess Street. However, there were complaints that the stand was too far away from where the people were. Also, many people did not know the taxi stand even existed.

Chris Russo, a student at UNCW, was downtown both the nights that the taxi stand was tested. "It would have been nice to know the taxi stand was there," Russo said. "I had to call the cab at 1 a.m. just to make sure I would get one at all."

According to the owner of Coastal Yellow Cab, Leith Hellens, the taxi stand will be attempted again, but this time between Dock and Princess streets. The only people allowed to drive through that area will be the people driving the taxis, and customers will be able to take a cab between midnight and 3 a.m.

In downtown Wilmington there are 68 places that have ABC permits. When all of these establishments are at capacity, it is possible to have 11,000 people downtown. That amount of people, combined with drinking, makes for a frenzied situation. Therefore, the Wilmington Downtown Inc. board created the nightlife task force.

The nightlife task force helps find solutions to the many existing problems downtown. The group is trying to put a stop to the fights that break out, the underage drinking, the traffic, and the lack of policemen downtown.

An employee at one of the bars downtown, Jason Aycock, said, "When I get off work at 2:30 there are 100 to 300 people on the streets still, either getting food, waiting for a taxi or just standing around chatting. Most pizza parlors are still open till 3 a.m. So, even by 3, people are left downtown without a ride home."

The taxi stand was made to be a solution, by helping people get out of downtown and to solve the other problems.

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