Henderson City Council members decided Monday night that maybe they don’t want to ban alcohol from city-owned property after all.
The council voted 7-0, with Mary Emma Evans out of the room, to table a policy from the Land Planning and Development Committee to enact such a ban. That committee, led by Elissa Yount and including Evans and Lonnie Davis, crafted the policy last month in response to several booze-drenched discussions at recent council sessions.
As tweaked by City Attorney John Zollicoffer, the policy would put all fully or partially city-owned buildings and their grounds, all recreation sites, and all city-maintained streets off-limits to any alcohol.
The Henderson-Vance County Chamber of Commerce’s requests to hold Alive! After Five, which includes beer sales and has Anheuser-Busch distributor Harris Inc. as its primary sponsor, outside the city Operations & Service Center raised the issue in the past couple of months.
To the particular frustration of Evans, current policy allows City Manager Eric Williams to decide on a case-by-case basis whether to allow organizations to use the Operations Center and whether alcohol may be a part of such events. With the council’s approval, Williams is allowing Alive! After Five on April 28 and Sept. 15.
The policy presented Monday night would not have affected those events because they were already approved, but it would have blocked the Chamber’s request to hold Alive! After Five on Breckenridge Street on June 23. The city owns and maintains Breckenridge.
The council did not take up the Chamber’s latest request Monday night, although none of the council members suggested dropping the street portion of the proposed policy.
Instead, criticism from council members and Mayor Clem Seifert focused on specific buildings.
“That policy just says no,” Seifert said.
The policy seemed to fit the mood of the council as members expressed things at their last full meeting March 21 after Williams received a series of anti-alcohol petitions organized by the Rev. Frank Sossamon of South Henderson Pentecostal Holiness Church. The three committee members would have put the policy within two votes of approval, but Seifert’s criticism cracked any solidarity on the issue.
Seifert said he agreed that the Operations Center should be alcohol-free, as should recreation sites. But he said the armory has long held events involving alcohol, and he sees no reason to change. In addition, he said, the cultural side of Embassy Square should be open to special events with alcohol.
“What are you going to do when the $20 million Embassy project has a wine-and-cheese party in the gallery?” Seifert said.
“You can’t do it” under the proposed policy, Yount said.
“I think you made a mistake to limit it, to make it that close,” Seifert said. “I think that’s a little tight, zero, zero, zero.”
Council members Bernard Alston and Mike Rainey quickly joined Seifert in opposing a blanket ban on beer and other booze.
“The policy is too stringent,” Rainey said.
“It is to the wall,” Alston said. “Any time you go to the wall with anything you create trouble.”
Council member Ranger Wilkerson said he agreed with both sides: He wants to ban alcohol on city property, but he thinks there should be exceptions for some special events and facilities.
Still, after Seifert said the Operations Center clearly falls into the no-alcohol category, Wilkerson said: “The Operations Center ain’t nothing but a garage. That’s as appropriate as anything.”
Evans had trouble getting past Seifert’s example of a reception at the Embassy Square gallery for the grand opening. She said she opposed making exceptions for “a certain group of people.”
“I just want to be fair to everyone,” Evans said.
Rainey said a blanket ban wouldn’t be fair to everyone because some people want to have alcohol.
“I think it’s a little tight” to bar responsible alcohol use at the armory and Embassy Square, Seifert said. People might want to hold champagne wedding receptions at the cultural center, for example.
“I will, for the record, state that a no-alcohol policy is what we ought to have,” the mayor said, but there should be exceptions.
Yount said her committee did not look at alcohol as a moral or ethical issue but as a business decision. Committee members did not want the city to take on the liability of allowing alcohol consumption on its property.
Davis, however, said he never considered Embassy Square during the committee meeting, and he no longer could support a blanket ban.
Evans said: “I know that you’re thinking about a certain group of people who are going to be involved in the building we’re talking about. I don’t have any problem with that as long as we treat everyone fairly and stop thinking about a select group of people. … Don’t allow one group over here and deny another group.”
“I agree that this policy, like every other policy in the city, should apply to everyone,” Alston said.
Council member John Wester said the elusive concept is to create a policy that can be applied consistently.
“I like the policy, but it’s got to be polished up,” Wilkerson said.
The council voted 6-2 against the policy as proposed, with Yount and Evans in favor. The council then quickly tabled the policy for further work by Yount’s committee.
The council didn’t have any problems with another policy Yount brought forward, to establish rules for the rental of the armory grounds while the building itself is closed.
Fire Chief Danny Wilkerson said he and Police Chief Glen Allen talked about the proposal, and Allen agreed to decide what security and traffic control measures, if any, groups need for each rental.
The council did not take formal action, but no one objected to the fire chief taking the policy to the Vance County Board of Commissioners for its approval. The city and county share ownership of the armory.
The City Council will act on the policy after the commissioners finish with it.