West Palm Weighs Restricting Late-night Alcohol Sales Downtown
Problematic nightclubs and bars in the downtown area could be restricted from selling alcohol past midnight, after the commission passed an ordinance last week requiring a special license for late-night alcohol sales.
The commission also banned future stores on and near Clematis Street from selling bottles or cans of alcohol, meaning no new liquor stores can open on Clematis and any future convenience stores won’t be able to sell alcohol.
Existing stores, including a soon-to-open liquor store at 302 Clematis, will be grandfathered in. However, one commissioner said she was in favor of the special license but didn’t realize she voted to ban future stores from selling cans or bottles of alcohol. A final vote will be held Jan. 23.
“If that’s the case, I’m going to bring it back for reconsideration. That issue is not resolved in my opinion. We did not have the conversation,” said Commissioner Kimberly Mitchell, who previously voiced concerns about banning new stores from selling alcohol and believes that part of the ordinance was quietly snuck in.
Raphael Clemente, executive director of the Downtown Development Authority, acknowledged that most of the discussion with the commissioners focused on the special late-night alcohol license. But he said the ban on alcohol sales in stores was mentioned, and he believes it will benefit the Clematis area.
“Single beverage sales and carry-out sales right in the heart of the entertainment district creates a challenge for the police department,” Clemente said. “It’s hard to say one store vs. another can come in, but a convenience store, a big part of their revenue is cheap liquor sales, and naturally that would be a great place for the nighttime crowd. That’s not necessarily something we want in the heart of our entertainment district.”
The late-night alcohol license is also a controversial provision for bar owners. While the cost of the license is minimal, it allows the police department to send a bar- or club-owner to a special magistrate if he or she gets more than three verified police calls in a month.
Too many underage alcohol sales or fights in a club could cause an owner to lose a late-night alcohol license for 90 days. Bars in West Palm Beach can stay open as late as 4 a.m., one of the later closing times in the county.
It will also require bar staff to obtain additional safety training, which Clemente said is already common practice because insurance companies give discounts to bars whose employees have had the training.
Rodney Mayo, the long-time owner of Respectable Street and other downtown clubs, said he’s against the new license. He said the city should focus on enforcing existing ordinances.
“They don’t enforce some of the issues they have now and I don’t know if this would help,” Mayo said. “It seems like more red tape and bureaucracy.”
Mayo said it will be “a logistical nightmare” and could lead to lawsuits.
“What you’re going to have is that, when a club gets up to two strikes, they’re going to tell managers not to call the cops, which might wind up causing more problems,” Mayo said.
Cleve Mash, owner with Mayo of Feelgoods and Lost Weekend, was more optimistic.
Mash said he believes most of the bars and nightclubs on Clematis follow the rules, but that the city is trying to be proactive with future bars. The city has had a yearlong moratorium on new bars and clubs, which will expire at the end of this month.
“We don’t want to be a street of bars and nightclubs and go back to the way it was back in the day where we didn’t have any responsibility and there weren’t restrictions. It was kind of a very loose street,” Mash said. “Everybody’s looking to make the street better, and that helps me and helps everybody.”
Mitchell compared the late night alcohol license to the city’s nuisance abatement ordinance which passed last year. Residents and businesses with repeated police and code enforcement visits now have fines assessed to their property tax bill.
“I don’t think of it as they’re under more regulation,” said Mitchell of the late-night alcohol license. “You have to make sure that the majority of the public is served and the public is more than just business owners. It’s residents who live there and all of the other businesses, not just the nightclubs.”