Downtown Tucson bars have new technology in safety fight

By early August, more than a dozen downtown businesses will have state-of-the-art technology that will allow them to sync customer information in real time.

“So that means if you and I are misbehaving in (one bar) and we walk over to Block A, by the time we get to Block A, Block A is going to know that we were removed for poor conduct,” Crystal Moore, Downtown Tucson Partnership’s president and CEO, said about the Patronscan ID scanners that 16 downtown bars and restaurants will start using in two weeks.

The Patronscan devices, which authenticate a patron’s identification including identifying underage patrons using fake IDs, replace outdated technology used in the year-old Together Tucson program. Three downtown businesses were part of that initiative, started in spring 2025, that allowed them to share data on any individual that was misbehaving in their establishments.

Both systems scan a customer’s ID. But the old system only synced the information a few times a day; the new technology syncs in real time.

The scanners, which Moore discovered during a Safe City Summit in Nashville, Tennessee, in April, are being used in cities including Dallas, West Hollywood and urban cores in Canada.

Moore approached Rio Nuevo, which put up some of the funding for Together Tucson, about investing in the new technology. She said the downtown tax increment finance district, responsible for redeveloping downtown Tucson, agreed to put up $55,000 to buy 17 scanners.

Patronscan presented a demonstration for downtown businesses and 16 signed on to use the devices including Block A and Lava, two businesses that have yet to open.

“The neat part about this is that this is going to end up blocking a few of the bad apples that have caused fights, or, in last Saturday's case, something even worse,” said Block A Sports Bar & Grill owner Grant Krueger, referring to the mass shooting early Sunday morning outside a downtown business at bar closing time. 

“I think even just denoting that there is this degree of cooperation between the various restaurants and bars, if you are a bad apple and you cause fights or issues or problems, you're going to get tossed out not of just one place but of many — that's going to do wonders," Krueger said. 

Moore said that since April 2025, the Together Tucson initiative has resulted in 73 patrons being denied entrance to downtown bars and restaurants.

Downtown Tucson Partnership, in a note on its website following the mass shooting, said it is continuing efforts to enhance downtown safety including improving lighting, visibility and activity in isolated and underused downtown areas and exploring other public safety technologies including “expanded camera infrastructure where appropriate.”

The shooting Sunday morning injured 10 people, including the suspect, who was shot by an officer before being arrested, police have said.