For some, life is better downtown after the party’s over

Forget about life being beautiful. Down at Bob’s Bail Bonds, Becky Simmons will settle for life getting back to normal on the east end of Ogden Avenue.

As officials from the Life is Beautiful music, food and art festival fenced off a substantial section of downtown late last week, longtime local business owners and members of the clergy continued to have run-ins with insensitive security personnel despite assurances to the contrary. City and festival officials met with everyone from Catholic priests to bail bonds company administrator Simmons in recent days to attempt to assuage concerns that the anticipated masses wouldn’t block them from their own buildings and drown out their Sunday sermons for the second straight year.

Simmons knows her business doesn’t engender a lot of respect from average citizens. Having suspected criminals for customers is like that. But the downtown corridor is riddled with bail bonds outfits that serve the reluctant residents of the nearby city and county lockups.

Opened by late Metro Officer Robert Murray more than two decades ago, Bob’s has been a fixture in the neighborhood through good times and bad. Prostitutes, pimps and other night crawlers need bail on a regular basis, and persons accused of crime need access to their bondsman to check in and make payments.

On the other end of downtown’s gritty rainbow, area churches provide spiritual succor and substantial services to the homeless, poor and elderly who survive nearby.

Similar refrains emerged from recent interviews with area residents: Following a recent column on the subject, many were told their concerns about being treated as trespassers on their own public streets were being addressed prior to the festival. But they continued to experience difficulty just getting to the front doors of their businesses and houses of worship.

Most interviewed chose their words carefully, and a few showed abundant patience with the problems.

Simmons, well, did I mention she runs a bail bonds outfit?

“I’ve been out there causing quite a scene,” Simmons said Friday as the festival got started. “I played dodge person today when they wouldn’t get out of my way.”

She added that Conrad Klaus, a local attorney with an adjacent office, also complained of the crush of construction and security as festival officials set up their party perimeter.

“They had assured us at the last town hall that we all attended there would be no road closures, no stopping of parishioners or clients,” Simmons says. “They assured us that our clients would not be stopped. Needless to say, our clients were stopped. Parishioners were stopped. There were roadblocks.”

Her driveway was also blocked. So she took matters into her own hands.

“I moved the roadblocks myself,” she said, adding that she bought a push broom to remove the trash leftover from the festival.

Simmons said she saw Father Courtney Edward Krier of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church escorting parishioners through the tangle of traffic, construction, and security.

“He was out there directing traffic so somebody wouldn’t get injured,” she said. “He shouldn’t have to do that.”

Meanwhile, city officials failed to ensure the dysfunctional arrangement was improved for the area’s long-tenured but least powerful residents.

Although she’s not much for religion herself, Simmons sprung to the defense of the church-goers in the care-worn neighborhood after hearing festival officials ask the houses of worship to move Sunday services to another day.

“The Catholic sabbath is Sunday,” she said. “That, to me, was cold-blooded, callous and insensitive. They were looking at the almighty buck.”

Not that even her loudest protest was acted on. Longtime area residents don’t carry much weight with officials from either the city or the festival.

“It would not happen at Peccole Ranch or Desert Shores or Summerlin — just here,” Simmons said.

With that, she returned to work at Bob’s Bail Bonds, where life may not beautiful, but is always interesting.

John L. Smith’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. E-mail him at jsmith@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0295.