City Council on Monday held a public hearing on a bill inspired by Shane Montgomery, the Philadelphia college student found dead more than a month after he went missing when he left a bar early Thanksgiving morning. The measure, introduced by Councilman Curtis Jones Jr., would require bars and any other establishments serving alcohol to install surveillance cameras.
Montgomery, 21, a West Chester University student and native of Roxborough, went missing just before 2 a.m. on Thanksgiving after he left Kildare's Irish Pub on Main Street in Manayunk, where he'd been hanging out with friends. His body was found 36 days later in the Schuylkill.
Surveillance video showing Montgomery, captured by a camera outside a nail salon not far from Kildare's, was not tracked down until Dec. 11 -- two weeks after he went missing. Jones has said that although cameras immediately outside the bar may not have saved the young man, they could have potentially shortened the painfully lengthy search for him.
Josh Cohen, a spokesman for Jones, said City Council held the bill in committee at 1 p.m. on Monday, but that a vote is not expected to happen before Council recesses for the summer. Cohen said Jones is hopeful, however, that the bill will be voted on before the end of 2015.
Cohen said issues raised by the local hotel and restaurant association that centered mostly on costs associated with surveillance cameras need to be worked out before the bill proceeds.
