When Tina Lee-Vogt started as Sacramento’s first nighttime economy manager last October, officials tasked her with ensuring safe and successful nightlife for entertainment businesses and patrons throughout the city.
The issue has hit the veteran city employee close to home and nine months into the job, Lee-Vogt said she sees herself as a facilitator, information gatherer and troubleshooter.
“Even though I'm an office of one, it's really a team effort,” Lee-Vogt said. “And my job is really to facilitate solving problems, working with different members of different teams and bringing in different people at different times depending on what that issue is.”
Sacramento created the Office of Nighttime Economy last year, but Lee-Vogt has managed the city’s entertainment permit program since 2009 and long coordinated with police and fire. Over her more than 30-year career with the city, Lee-Vogt has worked on a variety of programs from tenant protection to neighborhood services. She said the experiences and understanding of various departments informs her collaborative approach today for entertainment venues, bars and nightclubs.
Tina Lee-Vogt, Sacramento's Nighttime Economy Manager at City Hall, Tuesday, July 18, 2023.Andrew Nixon / CapRadioPersonal loss affects how she coordinates safety efforts, too. Lee-Vogt knew Greg Najee Grimes, who was killed in a shooting outside Mix Nightclub in downtown Sacramento last July. She grew up with his mother, Deborah Grimes, who started the 212 Anchor Foundation in the wake of his death.
The foundation organizes Stop the Bleed first-aid training for the community and the city later offered that training to businesses, Lee-Vogt said, in addition to previous active shooting webinars and its quarterly Pubs, Clubs and Bars workshop.
A police shooting two decades ago also influences Lee-Vogt’s perspective on safety. A Los Angeles Police Department officer fatally shot her brother, Anthony Dwain Lee, in 2000 at a Halloween party. She worked as an administrative officer in the Sacramento Police Department at the time and still often works with officers today.
“I think one of the things that my brother’s death really made me aware of is the importance of really good police training,” Lee-Vogt said. “And so I think it’s really important that police have training and police have empathy and understanding.”
Nightlife community weighs in on study
These days, as nighttime economy manager, Lee-Vogt seeks to understand the training police on the interdepartmental entertainment team receive. She said the team takes more of a facilitative than an enforcement approach with both businesses and patrons. Instead of trying to catch people doing things wrong, she said they focus on working with them.
“We want people, regardless of their ethnicity or gender or sexual orientation, regardless of where they go, to feel safe,” Lee-Vogt said.
She added an ongoing study will help the city learn and respond to concerns around safety. In February, Lee-Vogt began leading a sociable city assessment with the Responsible Hospitality Institute to examine how to improve Sacramento’s nightlife. The nonprofit institute helps cities across the nation manage nightlife businesses.
In over a dozen meetings, Sacramento business owners, residents, marketers and city employees have discussed topics including women’s safety, performances, sound control, permits and other city requirements.
Kimio Bazett, a broker at Turton Commercial Real Estate and a longtime Sacramento restaurateur, serves on the steering group for the assessment. With the open dialogue between people representing a variety of sectors, Bazett said he hopes the study will create an environment where venue operators can focus on their business instead of worrying about permits and inspections.
Since before she started leading the study, Lee-Vogt has been a champion for making it easier to navigate entertainment venue requirements, Bazett said. As owner of The Golden Bear, Bazett started working with her about 10 years ago, when she ran code enforcement for the city’s entertainment program. He added she streamlined processes and now brings the same collaborative approach to the study.
“Tina's energy and dedication to the work and to the sociable city assessment is singular, incredible and infectious,” Bazett said. “I think it energizes everyone around her and everyone involved.”
Lee-Vogt plans to use the study to determine what strategies she and a new employee will work on in the future. The Sacramento City Council approved funding for Lee-Vogt to hire an analyst this fiscal year, which will bring the Nighttime Economy Office to two people.
A storefront analysis in the assessment will help Lee-Vogt decide whether to do a full study on the economic impact of Sacramento’s nightlife. In a press conference when she first started the nighttime economy manager position, she said such a study was a priority along with reviewing the city’s entertainment ordinance.
For now, the city plans to survey nightlife businesses in Midtown and downtown on their revenue and employment, Lee-Vogt said. Her office supports businesses citywide, but with the majority located in the central city, Lee-Vogt said the assessment will give a snapshot of how nightlife benefits Sacramento.
Michael Ault, executive director of the Downtown Sacramento Partnership, said Lee-Vogt proactively communicates with all parties involved in entertainment districts. He added everyone shares the same goal: to ensure people have a great experience at nightlife venues, tell their neighbors and come back to the businesses.
“Perception is critical to all of us,” Ault said. “And I think Tina understands the importance of that, not just for our own districts, but for the city's perception as well.”
While business districts work to attract patrons to nightlife activities, Ault said it’s Lee-Vogt’s job to make sure bars and restaurants have proper procedures in place. Ault also praised her openness to ideas, noting she’s knowledgeable of what other cities are doing through her involvement with the Responsible Hospitality Institute, the nonprofit coordinating the sociable city assessment.
City seeks to open up opportunities
The council will likely discuss the results of the assessment in the fall, said Assistant City Manager Michael Jasso, who is Lee-Vogt’s boss. Jasso added the study will complement the Sacramento Music Census, which aims to evaluate the local music industry. The Office of Arts and Culture expects to present recommendations from the census later this summer or early fall, Jasso said.
Both studies can inform whether the city starts offering more than one type of entertainment venue permit, Lee-Vogt said. She pointed to the City and County of San Francisco’s limited live performance permit, which is separate from a place of entertainment permit, as an example. The option allows a brewpub to host bands for a smaller annual license fee than what a nightclub pays.
Sacramento would need to change its entertainment ordinance to offer different types of venue permits, Lee-Vogt said. She last worked on updating the ordinance about 10 years ago.
“We really want to look at, again, opening up those opportunities,” Lee-Vogt said. “Because … with the census, we realized that we want to kind of break down some of the barriers that would open it up for the creative economy as well to have more opportunities to perform.”
With her experience and vision to grow Sacramento nightlife, Jasso said the city is lucky to have Lee-Vogt leading the nighttime economy efforts. Because her position is based in the Office of Innovation and Economic Development, Jasso said she can better leverage small-business experts than when she worked in code enforcement.
“Tina can foster a much more holistic approach than we ever did and really see it as a vehicle for growing the industry, not just regulating the industry,” Jasso said. “And I think those go hand in hand.”
Moving forward, Lee-Vogt said she wants to work more on helping entertainment businesses owners. In her last role, she said her job was to process applications for owners, not look for grant opportunities for them. But now she can work on connecting businesses with resources.
Lee-Vogt added she hopes to collaborate with ethnic business chambers and consider opportunities similar to the Creative Business Innovation Challenge, a city-funded program that helped entrepreneurs of color grow their businesses.
“I'd like to work on if we can advance that even further with more of a focus on entertainment so we can work on those businesses being able to do a little bit more and be better prepared,” Lee-Vogt said. “So that's really something that's on my radar: How do we help businesses enter the market and be successful?”
Information on training the Office of Nighttime Economy offers is available on the city website.
