Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Don't forget: demon rum conference tomorrow at 10:00 AM.

Details: http://camdencommentary.blogspot.com/2009/11/council-committee-to-meet-to-do-battle.html
Posted by Jay Moreno at 9:05 PM

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I attended the meeting this morning. I was impressed to hear input from so many citizens. I like the idea of special event rules and the arts district.

November 18, 2009 at 2:28 PM
Jay Moreno said...

As you know, I was there too. It was well attended. Not surprisingly, it was largely attended by people who have a vested financial interest in being able to walk about in the immediate environs of the St. Marys river front with a 16 0z. cup of alcohol during certain designated "festival" events in certain designated (i.e., plainly marked off) areas. As some mentioned, keeping said areas too small and restrictive would be counterproductive to the point of rendering the whole concept a flop.
The only three sitting St. Marys elected officials I saw there were Larry Johnson, Bill Deloughy, and Greg "No Conflcit" Bird. Of the recently elected candidates, there were Sydney Howell, Keith Post, and John Morrissey. Apparently, as a consolation prize / adjunct to another campaign, Jolene Haney was invited by Alyce Thrnhil to more or less moderate the affair. She has expertise from helping write the original alcohol ordinannce in Statesboro. She did a pretty good job. It was clear that she was very pro- relaxation (of existing rules.)

Celinda Perry was very much against it (the proposed "festival zone" zone - roughly from the waterpark down either side of Osborne southbound, to include the entirety of the mill property, all the way to the river, then right and left on St. Marys Street). She had a sheaf of statistics from somewhere supporting her claim that open consumption would lead to all sorts of social maladies. She kept references observationsd made by differ member of "my (her) board>" Help me out here: what "board" would that be? When it became clear that she was getting nowhere, she left early in a bit of a snit.

At any rate, my guess is that the votes aret there on the new council to do this. Even Sydney Howell, who had the courage to go ahead and try an early floating of his obligatory (to Agape) suggestion that he would like to see a "moratorium" on issuing any more licenses for package shops, can see the handwriting on the wall. He later jokingly said to me outside that "That (his suggestion) went over like a turd in a punchbowl, didn't it?"

Anyway, round two will take place on Decemeber 2nd at 10:00 AM - same place. They will get more into the nuts and bolts of such things as distance requirements. Interestingly, the distances inside of the festival zone would be reduced drastically as comparex to outside of said zone. For example, the distance betweena church and a bar outside the zoen would be the current 600 feet, versus only 100 feet inside opf the zone.

November 18, 2009 at 5:03 PM
Jay Moreno said...

Correction: Councilwoman Hase was also there, but sat right behind me out of my line of sight and made no comments.

November 18, 2009 at 7:42 PM

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