A new report from Hamilton police has nothing to say about whether crowds are down at Hess Village.

And that leaves councillors with nothing to go on other than the word of bar owners that smaller crowds in the entertainment district mean they should update a bylaw that charges them tens of thousands of dollars for policing.

Councillors had hoped information from police would help them decide on a proposal to have the city take on more of the cost of the special policing that is now billed to the bar owners.

Police don't keep track of those numbers, spokesperson Catherine Martin confirmed to CBC News, which leaves councillors without empirical data on crowd counts.

That could spell trouble for Coun. Jason Farr's motion that would create a pilot project where the city would pay 65 per cent of paid duty costs in Hess.

Farr, for his part, remains undeterred on the issue, and told CBC News he believes things will progress when the report comes to planning committee next week. He and club owners have been steadfast that crowds in Hess have dropped steadily since 2012. The police board will get the report at its meeting Thursday.

"My only focus is to address the billing practice," Farr said. "As this police report confirms, no other municipality pours the cost onto the business owners for policing their entertainment districts."

In the report, Hamilton police checked with 10 other Canadian cities including Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver and Winnipeg – and none of them have a bylaw like Hamilton does.

"Research has shown there are a number of cities within Ontario and Canada which have identified entertainment districts," the report reads. "None have a bylaw requiring merchants to hire and pay for voluntary paid duty policing costs."

That is the real crux of the issue, Farr says. "The real point here is that this is an unfair billing practice that doesn't happen anywhere else in the country."

The city and police have been going in circles on the bylaw for months.

Police officials say they will send as many officers to Hess as is set out in the bylaw, while city officials say they first want a firm analysis of what changing the bylaw would mean for the area.

All the while, bar owners say they are hemorrhaging money and can't pay the costs of paid duty policing, which they say are disproportionately high for the amount of people now going to Hess Village.

Councillors also asked police for a report on crime trends in the area, and police provided statistics that say that incidents of violent crime, robberies and assaults have all risen in Hess Village from 2012 to 2014.

Farr said that seemed contrary to reports he had been given on crime trends in the area. "My recollection is that the trend is downward and not upward," he said.