Murphy – The town council will move forward with more discussions about the possibility of a “social district” where alcoholic beverages could be carried out of restaurants in open containers on downtown streets.
“We’ll get another meeting, a specially called meeting where we all get together and possibly meet with restaurant owners,” Mayor Tim Radford said Monday night. “We have to do our homework and make sure we don’t jump into something blindly, so I appreciate all the dialogue tonight.”
Council member Keisha Dockery raised the possibility of such a district during the town’s July meeting, patterning it after similar ventures recently adopted by other places within the state. Since then, Downtown Development Director Laura Lachance has had an opportunity to consult with other North Carolina Main Street communities that have implemented the measure.
“It puts the brick and mortar (restaurants) on a level playing field with brewers,” Lachance said. “Somebody who manufactures alcohol can participate in a beer garden or the Tasty Tuesdays event down at the (L&N) Depot, but you can’t have The Mason Bar participate in something like that because of their license. So, it would allow them to participate in special events.”
Members of the town council appeared more hesitant about the proposal during the October meeting Monday night, after some expressed quick enthusiasm toward it during the July meeting. Town Manager Chad Simons offered perspective from nearby Sylva, which got its social district off the ground in April as part of a six-month test program.
“Knowing this was going to be a topic on the agenda, I did reach out to Sylva’s police chief,” Simons said. “I wanted his perspective on any increase in drunk and disorderly type of conduct, litter, etc., what they’ve seen.
“They actually put their social district in their CAD (Computer Aided Dispatch) system, so they can actually track in real time their calls associated with it. They compared it to 2019, and (there are) no increases whatsoever.”
Such a district is still a relatively new approach by towns within North Carolina. The move was made possible after a bill allowing cities and counties to implement social districts passed through the General Assembly last September.
According to Dockery, those places have seen increased tourism and tax revenue as a result.
“There are a lot of bigger towns that have adopted this, but the two that come to mind that are not near a metropolitan area and are similar in size to Murphy are Sylva, and Pilot Mountain is another town that just established it in August,” Lachance said. “What I’ve heard from lots of Main Street directors and other people is, go slow with the implementation.
“Like Keisha said, meet with all the downtown businesses to explain the program and meet in a roundtable (format) rather than a survey, meet face to face. I think it gets misconstrued a lot and there are a lot of questions.”
Lachance said Pilot Mountain’s social district is in effect from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. Thursday through Saturday. She previously has noted that Sylva chose to allow alcoholic beverages to be brought into certain retail establishments. Businesses that opt-in are noted by special signage that Murphy businesses would likewise need to adopt.