Mishawaka Common Council bans overnight parking behind Smith's Downtown Bar

MISHAWAKA, Ind. --- The Mishawaka Common Council passed an ordinance on Monday, restricting parking in the lot behind Smith's Downtown Bar. Only those with parking passes for the lot may use it between the hours of midnight and 6 a.m. 

"We have been made aware as a council of what appears to be an inordinate number of incidents of violence and violent behavior," said Mishawaka Common Council President Gregg Hixenbaugh. "What it doesn’t do is impact the ability of those individuals who have purchased a parking pass parking their vehicles in that lot or any of our other lots without restrictions, it has no impact on those individuals."

The ordinance has been met with resistance on social media for unfairly singling out Smith's, but Hixenbaugh refutes that claim.

"This is not target towards any individual business," said HIxenbaugh. "This is targeted towards a series of criminal behaviors, risks to public safety, concerns to public safety that all of us being members of the community should be concerned about."