COVINGTON, Ga. — The town of Covington is presently within the means of updating its alcohol ordinances.
This course of wouldn’t solely revitalize the town’s requirements for serving alcohol in eating places, but it surely additionally goals to provide the town extra leeway to droop, revoke or in any other case restrict a enterprise’s alcohol license if compliance points come up.
Whereas a number of of the incoming modifications are simply meant to modernize dated verbiage and rules, the council thought-about making modifications to the allowed serving hours and rising jurisdiction for native police to intervene with routinely unruly places.
Probably the most debated matter on the desk on the work session was whether or not or to not change the time that eating places are required to cease serving alcohol to patrons. At present, the cutoff time is 2 a.m., however the proposal on the desk sought to revise it to midnight.
Finally, the council made a consensus to go away the cutoff at 2 a.m. as is, however will revisit it if different modifications fail to rectify issues.
“I believe what we’re making an attempt to outline is that if we would like eating places or bars,” mentioned Councilwoman Susie Keck.
The council went backwards and forwards on the matter, making an attempt to foretell potential adversarial results and weighing the professionals and cons.
For one, Councilwoman Charika Davis was involved that if neighboring cities or counties had later serving hours, native patrons would drive to different locations after midnight after which drive again into Covington later that night.
This may create a aggressive drawback for native institutions, as some visitors could skip over Covington totally, going straight to a different metropolis to drink. The longer drive additionally poses a security danger because it may up the probabilities of DUI-related incidents if individuals are returning residence intoxicated and with extra time spent on the highway.
One other level raised by Councilwoman Kim Johnson was that, although the council could discover it affordable to cease serving alcoholic drinks at midnight, youthful visitors who have a tendency to remain up later could discover this stifling.
“I’m positive with 2:00 [a.m.],” Johnson mentioned. “We’re older. These youthful folks don’t go to mattress as early. We used to not even begin preparing till 10:00. That was a few years in the past thoughts you, however we wouldn’t even begin getting dressed till 10 p.m. So I hate to do this.”
Davis and Johnson’s issues appeared to vary the tide of the dialog. Whereas it had first appeared the council was leaning in the direction of dialing again the hours or compromising at 1 a.m., they then started to contemplate leaving the cutoff at 2 a.m.
This inclination additionally stemmed from the council talking extra plainly about what their chief reasoning behind overhauling the ordinances stemmed from. Based on their dialogue, although updating the ordinances may have quite a few benefits, the problem is basically with one native institution that remained unnamed by the council.
Councilman Jared Rutberg, who mentioned he not too long ago went on a ride-along with the Covington Police Division (CPD), was involved that there could also be one particular restaurant on the coronary heart of the issues, citing a current incident that concerned workers “attacking” CPD officers on the scene.
Allegedly, this unnamed location has develop into a frequent harbinger of incidents requiring police intervention, and the council is seeking to mend the ordinances to obviously distinguish how “extreme” alcohol-related incidents will likely be handled.
Keck requested CPD Chief Philip Bradford, who was current on the assembly, how he would outline “extreme” numbers of police visits to an institution for alcohol-related issues.
“I might say, 4 or 5 occasions that we repeatedly return,” Bradford mentioned.
Bradford added that there must be a sure cause for the calls, so if somebody had a coronary heart assault or locked their keys of their automobile it could not be marked in opposition to the enterprise.
Councilman Travis Moore later made certain to stipulate, per an viewers member’s request, that bars wouldn’t be penalized if a patron arrives already intoxicated and creates points if not having been served on the location.
Nonetheless, Rutberg voiced a priority that this might discourage institutions to name for assist when points come up, resulting in escalation and probably additional hurt that might have been prevented.
The council determined that they didn’t need to “punish” all native restaurant institutions by making them cease serving early, probably harming their enterprise, as a result of one place is routinely problematic.
“I don’t suppose we should always punish everybody if there’s one enterprise that’s misbehaving,” Davis mentioned. “If we cease serving alcohol at 12:00, meaning lots of people are going to go to Rockdale, after which they’re nonetheless going to be driving again into Covington, Newton County round 2:00 anyway.”
Finally, the council determined that they would go away the serving cutoff time at 2 a.m. and see if the opposite modifications made to the ordinances would give the police sufficient capacity to rectify the problematic institution.
A number of different modifications to the ordinances have been addressed, all that underlyingly work to maintain eating places primarily for eating and never bars-in-disguise.
The council additionally selected to cut back the variety of required meals gadgets on a menu from 25 to fifteen. This stipulation has been in place to maintain the town’s eating places from working like bars, largely serving alcohol however sustaining a handful of meals gadgets.
The 15 meals gadgets go into element to maintain eating places from counting sides or desserts as gadgets. Meals gadgets will likely be outlined within the ordinances to incorporate appetizers and entrees, although not more than 5 of the 15 gadgets could be appetizers.
This doesn’t prohibit a restaurant from placing greater than 5 appetizers on their menu; fairly it signifies that solely 5 could go in the direction of the tally of meals gadgets. At the very least 10 should be entrees.
Smoking insurance policies are additionally being up to date. All smoking will likely be prohibited indoors at eating places. This is not going to embody any out of doors seating areas.
The council was certain to outline smoking as together with any of the next: vapes, cigars, cigarettes, pipes, hookah, and different comparable tobacco or plant merchandise, together with marijuana. There is no such thing as a differentiation between synthetic or natural devices, and digital gadgets akin to e-cigarettes are additionally topic to the coverage.
For these modifications to happen, the council should bear two readings with corresponding public hearings. The town has not introduced when the primary studying will happen.
