By Milo Ippolito, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The jury’s out on whether red berets will be the rage on Buckhead’s Bolling Way this winter.
So far, the city has not rolled out the red carpet for the Guardian Angels, who have offered their services to help combat crime in Buckhead’s boisterous nightclub district.
But the notion of the self-appointed protectors of New York City’s subways parading through Atlanta’s party central has certainly drawn attention.
“I talked to a handful of guys who say ‘I want to be one,’ ” said Michael Krohngold, owner of the Tongue & Groove and Jack Rabbit nightclubs in Buckhead, who is trying to bring the Angels to Atlanta.
The Guardian Angels, a nonprofit group funded by charitable donations, began patrolling New York subways in 1979. The group raised $570,000 in nationwide contributions last year. Its members are volunteers. It has a small paid staff of fewer than 10 people in New York. Chapters in other cities are made up mainly of area recruits. They typically seek a host to provide a rent-free base.
The Guardian Angels, once 1,000 members strong in New York, are down to about 60 members. But they claim chapters in 20 North American cities as well as in London, Tokyo, Milan, Italy, and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Some chapters, like the one formed this year in Savannah, have just a few members.
Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa has been invited by the Atlanta Licensed Beverage Council to visit in January to talk about establishing a chapter here, said Warren Bruno, chairman of that newly formed bar owners association. Sliwa planned to come this month, but the bar owners postponed the visit to allow time to gauge public opinion.
“If the police don’t want them, and the council doesn’t want them, and the neighbors don’t want them, we would be foolish to do it,” Bruno said.
The Atlanta Police Department on Friday declined comment regarding whether the Guardian Angels would be welcome. A spokeswoman for Mayor Shirley Franklin said it’s police Chief Richard Pennington’s call whether to cooperate with the group.
Previous visits by the Angels have gotten mixed reviews.
High-profile cases
A group from New York spent three weeks in Atlanta in 1981 in response to the murders of 20 children. The City Council president and police commissioner derided the Angels. But they were welcomed into the homes of public housing residents, who gave the volunteer crime fighters a place to stay.
They returned in 1986, when four women older than 60 were raped and murdered. That same year, they started an Atlanta chapter to patrol MARTA and the housing projects. Co-founder Lisa Sliwa met with the public safety commissioner and worked out an agreement for the Guardian Angels to cooperate with police. The chapter lasted into 1987. Curtis Sliwa was arrested in Forsyth County in 1987 for marching after dark during a civil rights demonstration.
Sliwa says the organization has a lot of experience in rowdy nightlife districts bigger than Buckhead, pointing out that they are headquartered in New York’s Times Square.
“We’re right on restaurant row and right on the cusp of the Great White Way,” Sliwa said.
The Angels boosted their presence in Washington this year after a series of gang shootings in and around the Adams-Morgan nightlife district, which has similarities to Buckhead. There, they also received a mixed welcome.
Uneasy message
The Guardian Angels met with District of Columbia police Chief Charles Ramsey last Monday to discuss activities there, said Sgt. Joe Gentile, police public information officer. He said Ramsey has known the Angels since his days with the Chicago police.
“The chief welcomes any citizen involvement as long as they don’t put themselves in harm’s way,” Gentile said.
But a bar owner in the Adams-Morgan district said the Angels are not welcome there and have moved on. “Their presence sends a message that there is more of a problem than there is,” said Bill Duggan, owner of Madam’s Organ blues bar. “I know some people welcomed them. I think it gives more of a feeling that the place is [a] ghetto.”
Duggan said the Angels came in after a high-profile shooting and mainly walked around while the news cameras were rolling. “You didn’t see them at 2:30 or 3 a.m. Once the evening news was off, they weren’t around.”
Sliwa said the Guardian Angels are not just “grandstanding.” “We’ve had six Guardian Angels shot and killed in 25 years, three dozen seriously injured. I’ve been shot five times.”
There aren’t many other volunteer groups willing to patrol the streets, he said.
“Whether you have people in pink shower caps or cowboy hats or a division of Marines,” Sliwa said, “you should welcome them.”
Duggan said Adams-Morgan business owners asked the Angels to leave. They moved on to the nearby Mount Pleasant-Columbia Heights area, where they were invited by City Councilman Jim Graham. There, the Angels paint over graffiti and warn kids not to join gangs.
“I think they’re a positive influence in an area that needs to see more positive influences,” Graham said. “They’re very visible. They have a solid reputation for many people.”
Sliwa said the Angels were not kicked out of Adams-Morgan but are concentrating on areas where they are needed. “The councilman asked us to shift our emphasis to Mount Pleasant and Columbia Heights because it is far more dangerous and has far more problems.”
In Atlanta, the Angels probably would move on to southwest Atlanta after things calmed down in Buckhead, he said.
San Diego police public information Officer Jim Johnson said the Guardian Angels have been active on and off over the years, including in the Gas Lamp District, an entertainment destination downtown. “They don’t take the place of law enforcement, . . . but, again, it’s a good effort and maybe for some of the lighter crimes there could be some benefit.”
Reno, Nev., police Detective K. McManus said the Guardian Angels last year offered to help patrol the annual Hot August Nights festival. “We told them quite honestly that we didn’t need them,” McManus said. Still they came. “It was a very small contingent. . . . They did walk around in their red berets and T-shirts.”
The latest potential venture into Atlanta was started by a club hopper who frequents Tongue & Groove and put Krohngold in touch with Sliwa, Krohngold said. Manouel Triantis said he enjoys Atlanta’s nightlife and was thinking about Buckhead’s recent crime problems when he found the Guardian Angels’ Web site and contacted Sliwa. “If it’s good enough for our nation’s capital, it’s good enough for Atlanta,” Triantis said.