By Katie Northcott
All eyes are on Shelbyville City government as the City Council considers creating an entertainment district on Shelbyville’s square.
During their Sept. 2 study session, council members discussed changing city ordinances to create an Open Container District. According to City Attorney Ginger Shofner, businesses can obtain the licenses they need to sell alcohol inside their buildings. However, the city ordinances do not allow alcohol to be sold and carried in open containers outside of the restaurants.
Shofner gave the example of Beale Street in Memphis as an extreme example of an Open Container District, where any alcohol container is allowed. However, the council members were more inclined to emulate Station Street in Chattanooga, where alcohol may only be carried in containers labeled “Station Street” and is only allowed in a certain area.
“It’s not going to be where everybody and their brother is going to be sitting there drinking all the time, but the big stick that the city needs, I think, is that we need to get the revenue off this district,” Council member Henry Feldhaus said.
Feldhaus envisions the square and about a block off of the square as an entertainment district. He said that he had kept receipts from his time at other cities’ entertainment districts. He had seen those cities make rates of up to 30 percent in taxes. He believes an entertainment district could help the city, businesses on the square, and the community.
He said the square had been closed to traffic for events many times.
“Everybody to a person is saying, ‘Wow, wouldn’t it be nice if we could do this all the time,’” he said. “That’s what I’ve heard over and over for many years when I’ve participated in [the Wine Walk].”
Mayor Randy Carroll opposed an open container district.
“I just don’t go for that, right now. I don’t see any way that I would go for it,” Carroll said. “I’m afraid that we’ll have people that are supposed to be in that little district walk right out onto the square, which is where people will be driving.”
Carroll raised similar concerns about the plan to extend the entertainment district to the Fly Art Center’s parking lot, saying that traffic on the roads next to the Center would be “zooming by.”
“I go to Chattanooga. I’ve been to Nashville. I’ve been to all those places,” he said. “I just don’t see that being Shelbyville, Tennessee.”
Shelbyville NOW posted a poll on Sept. 2 asking Shelbyville residents to weigh in. At the time of writing, 82 percent of 1,278 voters are in favor of allowing businesses to sell alcohol outdoors on the square like Station Street in Chattanooga.
The council members directed staff to take the idea before the Beer Board and Planning Commission for additional feedback. The City Council also wishes to hear from law enforcement before making a decision.
City Manager Scott Collins said that other Tennessee cities like Fayetteville and Spring Hill had reached out and are watching what Shelbyville will do.
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