Most of the time, if you can work out problems on your own, it’s usually better than bringing the government in on it.

Thanks to the threat of a citywide crackdown a few months back and city leaders considering closing bars down at a fixed time each night, the Natchez Bar Association seems to have had at least some success in policing their own patrons.

Bar owners have begun communicating between one another to ensure all know who some of the local troublemakers are and politely keep an eye on them or ask them to leave before they get too rowdy.

Such attention and continued communication between the city and the bar owners should help alleviate some of the problems that the city was having with violence outside of bars.

We applaud efforts by the Natchez Bar Association and encourage further work to eliminate as many of the problems — both with violence and rowdiness as well as litter and other problems that seem to creep into areas just outside of some local establishments.

Eventually, we’d love it if the city would consider beginning to develop a certain section of the city — perhaps Broadway Street, Silver Street or Roth Hill Road — as an entertainment district.

Such an area could become a bigger attraction than downtown already is by aggregating restaurants, nightclubs and the like to a single location.

For now, however, we’re simply happy that some good effort is going into ending some of the bar-related problems that our city had experienced.