by J. Brooks Terry
Staff Writer
Should downtown adopt extended drinking hours? A special committee could soon make a recommendation.
City Council member Suzanne Jenkins, who has sponsored legislation that would establish downtown as an entertainment zone, announced this week that a panel of area stakeholders have been assembled. They will meet Friday to discuss the pros and cons of letting the public buy alcohol until 4 a.m on parts of the north and south banks.
“With an issue like this, it’s important that we remain proactive in establishing what issues we might have if we make the entertainment zone a reality,” Jenkins said, who will likely not attend the committee meeting. “The more information we have ahead of time, the better.”
Consultant and former mayor’s office chief of staff Audrey Moran will chair the committee, which includes The Clara White Mission’s Ju’Coby Pittman, Undersheriff Frank Mackesy, attorney Bob Rhodes and Bailey Publishing’s Jim Bailey. Jenkins said she expects the group will take its time in reviewing the available data and will avoid making a hasty recommendation to the Council.
“I’m looking forward to seeing if this is in Jacksonville’s best interest,” Moran said. “We’ve got a dynamic group looking at this and I’m sure there is going to be a lot of information for us to explore.”
Most of that information has been compiled by Dylan Reingold, an attorney in the City’s General Counsel’s Office. Reingold said he looked to cities including Tampa and Atlanta which have recently established entertainment zones of their own.
“Places like Ybor City are physically set up the way we’d like to see our downtown,” Reingold said. “They have thriving retail and restaurant elements that make extended hours a more attractive idea.”
And though only making a “cursory review” of various statistics near those zones, Reingold said crime rates have stabilized in and around them.
“We even looked at Tucson, Ariz. where they just recently went from having alcohol sales until 1 a.m. and moved it back to 2 a.m.,” he said. “The number of DUIs actually went down after it changed. I can’t say if there would be a similar impact here, but the data to maybe support that is out there.”
Later drinking hours apparently didn’t increase the rates of offenses like cruising and loitering either.
“In the very least, there is nothing that says we should expect a crime wave if the committee determines there should be an entertainment zone here,” he said.
Heat from a handful of angry residents has so far had little effect on planning for the proposed entertainment zone. Jenkins said those concerns will be aired, but that the committee should be trusted to make the correct recommendation.
“There are many many issues to look at,” she said. “And like I’ve said from the beginning, if we’re working ahead of the curve and addressing the concerns that are out there, there shouldn’t be a problem.”