Back in the mid-1980s, when states raised their drinking age from 18 to 21, they typically grandfathered in people who turned 18 before the law changed. You had a brief period of 19-year-olds legally drinking in places where the drinking age was 21.
The Henderson-Vance County Chamber of Commerce would become the equivalent of those 19-year-olds under a policy the City Council’s Land Planning and Development Committee advanced Wednesday afternoon.
The chairwoman of that committee, Elissa Yount, won support from members Mary Emma Evans and Lonnie Davis for a policy that would ban the use of alcohol on “city property.”
That issue was weighty enough to draw the Rev. Frank Sossamon of South Henderson Pentecostal Holiness Church and Chamber President Bill Edwards to the committee meeting at the Municipal Building.
The City Council referred the matter to the committee after another discussion Monday night about the Chamber’s Alive After Five concert series, which is scheduled to bring music and beer sales to the city Operations & Service Center in April and September.
“I’ve been on the city about this ever since I’ve been on the City Council,” Evans said Wednesday.
A council vote Feb. 14 that effectively approved Alive After Five, with only Evans in opposition, was not enough to put the issue to rest.
Sossamon, true to a vow he made at that February council meeting, has organized church-based opposition to beer sales at the city facility. City Manager Eric Williams has received a series of petitions urging him not to allow the Chamber events, and he has fielded an inquiry from Alive After Five’s primary sponsor, Anheuser-Busch distributor Harris Inc. of Henderson, about the propriety of beer sales on a temporarily closed downtown street in case a third Alive After Five this year goes in that direction.
“I think what we’re looking at is a policy issue. We’re not looking at a morals issue or an ethics issue,” Yount said Wednesday, noting the precedent of an alcohol ban at city recreational facilities.
The committee also looked at the example of the original lease agreement the council created for the Operations & Service Center in October 2002, which read: “There shall be no alcoholic beverages or controlled substances allowed on the premises.”
Williams said that alcohol rule died when the council dropped the whole policy and stopped renting out the operations facility. Since then, Williams has used his administrative authority from time to time to allow nonprofit groups such as the Chamber to hold events at the center at no charge, with or without alcohol.
The only reason the issue has come up, Edwards said, is Alive After Five, which moved to the Operations & Service Center for two concerts last year. “Our event is the platform that’s being jumped on.”
“I don’t see this as an Alive After Five issue,” Yount said. She said the idea is to make rules everyone can live with, and her sense is that not allowing alcohol on city property will cause Henderson fewer headaches.
Sossamon said the city has a chance to send a consistent message. “You already have a policy for your employees, and they can’t drink on the job. They can’t drink on city property or any property,” the pastor said. “You’re being consistent with what you are stating in other areas. You’re being consistent with your lease agreement. You’re being consistent with what you already have with the regulation for the parks and recreation areas. You’re being consistent with your employee expectations. So it’s more being consistent not to have any alcohol on public property.”
Yount read the following policy proposal: “The city of Henderson prohibits use of any alcohol or alcohol products on property owned by the city or on any property owned jointly with the county.”
She suggested that the policy go into effect after the first Alive After Five, scheduled for April 28, only 17 days after the first council meeting at which the policy could be enacted. Yount said the Chamber would have enough time to find another location for its Sept. 15 Alive After Five.
But Edwards explained that the Chamber signed a band to play that day and solicited sponsors after Williams gave approval last month for the use of the Operations & Service Center.
“We didn’t ask for a handout,” Edwards said. “We asked for an event.”
He said that if the Sept. 15 plans fall through, the Chamber might seek restitution from the city.
Saying she wants to be fair, Evans proposed a compromise: grandfathering in the Chamber by allowing any previously approved events with alcohol to go ahead.
“I’m certainly not trying to punish the Chamber event,” Evans said.
Davis and Yount agreed to that change in the policy, and Sossamon gave his support. “I can understand the wisdom of that. … I live with a lot of things I don’t like.”
Thus, with full council approval, the Chamber stands to hold a fund-raiser with alcohol on city property five months after such events are banned.
Edwards appreciated being grandfathered in and knowing what the rules will be for 2006. His lingering concern, however, is a policy regarding city streets.
The Chamber president wants a policy that specifically says whether the city will allow alcohol to be consumed at events held on city streets.
Davis noted the big difference between a situation such as New Orleans, where people can walk the streets with cups of beer or harder drinks in hand, and an Alive After Five-type event, where a street is temporarily closed and alcohol is allowed within a defined area, effectively a club that happens to lack walls and a roof.
Yount, however, said the committee was not asked to take up the street question. The issue was raised Monday night, but Mayor Clem Seifert’s charge to the committee appeared to give the panel a choice about how comprehensive the policy should be.
Yount’s proposal would allow state law, rather than city policy, to govern decisions on street events. State law allows special-use permits for alcohol sales on such occasions, but Edwards said he doesn’t want to face another city firestorm if the Chamber goes that route.
“City streets are city property,” Williams said, suggesting at least a modification to the proposed policy to explicitly say that it covers city property other than streets.
The committee did not make that change, but it did back the idea of researching the policies of other towns.
Tweaks to the policy are possible when it goes through City Attorney John Zollicoffer on the way to the full council April 11. The council could amend or reject the policy, but Alive After Five’s status at the Operations & Service Center seems safe for this year. porn jameson jenna moviesmovie jennifer porn anistonmovies lesbainlesbian and movies gayanime movies lesbiankissing movies lesbianvampire lesbian moviegirls movies lightspeedtoon movies loonymadrus adult movie