City Passes New Public Alcohol Ordinance

Cookeville City Council rejected a delay to the city’s new public alcohol event ordinance Thursday night, though members did not close the door to further changes.

The ordinance allows outdoor public events hosted by non-profit organizations to serve alcohol at the Putnam County Fairgrounds and the Leslie Town Centre parking lot. Tennessee Tech campus areas and the Golden Eagle Golf Club are not covered by the new ordinance. Council Member Eric Walker again asked for opportunities to include street closures based on local business involvement. Council Member Luke Eldridge said the businesses talking to Walker do not appear representative.

“I haven’t heard a business say anything about that idea,” Eldridge said. “If they have, we’ve been working on this for months. Why have they not come forth? Is any business here? Okay, no business here. So there’s no business here to support that. I just think we could move on and go, because they haven’t talked to us. They may have talked to you. They’ve had a whole week to talk to us. I haven’t had any. I’ve just had more people say, ‘please don’t allow it. Please don’t allow it.'”

Eldridge joined Mayor Laurin Wheaton and other council members in saying the council can continue to tweak the ordinance and talk to businesses about adding street closures. Wheaton said the ordinance can be amended.

Walker wanted the council to postpone a vote on the ordinance Thursday night to allow for more discussion about a proposal to allow street closures if an effected business sponsored the non-profit event.

“I think it’s something that we should reach out to the businesses, invite them in, and see if there is a way to make Main Street work from them, hear from them directly and I think that’s the best way to move forward in this,” Walker said. “There’s nothing that’s going to happen between now and the end of the year. We’ve still got plenty of time. The seasons are going to change, and no one’s going to want to do events like that outside. So we have the opportunity now to postpone this, to take it back and look at it and really try to look into this idea of sponsorship and create an area where this can happen.”

Walker added another wrinkle to the discussion suggesting the ordinance should not be limited to non-profits hosting events. That part of the ordinance came from the committee tasked with forming the ordinance, in part, to deal with state ABC rules.

Council Member Ali Bajci said Walker’s statement that the city has taken away a resident’s rights with its changes this year is false.

“So it’s not like we’re prohibiting anything,” Bajci said. “We’re not taking away anyone’s rights. They’ve never been able to walk down the street holding a beer, drinking a beer, anything like that, ever.”

City Manager James Mills opened Thursday’s discussion with a slight change to the ordinance, giving Tennessee Tech authority over its campus, but limiting the Tennessee Tech Foundation properties not subject to the ordinance, to the golf course.

“Tech Foundation also owns the Regions Bank in that parking lot (downtown),” Mills said. “So I don’t think that was intent. I think Danny (Rader)’s intent, our attorney’s intent, and y’all’s intent, and that’s why I made the recommendation I did, was to only let that happen at Tennessee Tech campus and the golf course. Be specific about it, not the rest of the properties owned by the foundation.”