Eureka Springs officials don’t expect many problems from the town’s implementation of an “entertainment district,” but they are also reserving the right to pull the plug if the experiment goes awry.
The Eureka Springs City Council approved the creation of the district by a vote of 4-2 last month. The district will encompass much of the historic downtown area of the town of slightly more than 2,000 people in western Carroll County.
The state Legislature passed Act 812 last year authorizing the creation of entertainment districts, which allow possession and consumption of alcoholic beverages outside of bars and restaurants, as long as the open possession occurs within the defined entertainment district.
Mayor Butch Berry said Eureka Springs’ district will debut Friday, March 13. The ordinance approving the district allows for it to operate Thursday through Saturday from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m.
“We think it is going to add more to our visitors’ experience in our town,” Berry said. “It’s another tool in our toolbox.”
It is, as of now, a temporary tool. The ordinance that passed did so with a sunset clause, meaning the district will terminate on Sept. 13, 2020. The City Council can end the district before then, decide to extend it or make it permanent.
“We decided to do it on a temporary basis for six months to see what ramifications might come out of that,” Berry said.
Berry mentioned the town’s Blues Festival in 1994, which has taken on near legendary status for its tales of drunkenness and arrests. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported at the time that 1,000 people were drinking in the street and 13 were arrested, most for public intoxication.
Berry said he doesn’t expect anything remotely similar to happen in the entertainment district. He said city Councilwoman Mickey Schneider spoke of “death and chaos” in the district.
“We have had some people who remember 20-30 years ago when we had some negative experiences when we had a Blues Fest,” Berry said. “We had a lot of alcohol being consumed on the streets, and some people think it is going to be the same type of situation. We think it is a different element, a different group of people who are here [compared with] 30 years ago.”
‘Not Here to Hose Anybody’
Eureka Springs held a town meeting Tuesday to discuss the entertainment district with concerned citizens and downtown bar owners.
Police Chief Brian Young said he believes his 13-officer department will be able to adequately monitor the district with a rotation of four to five officers patrolling. He and the mayor have discussed creating another full-time position from existing part-time slots that are already in the budget.
Eureka Springs is a tourist town, Young said, and as long as people behave, he doesn’t expect drinking in the streets to become a nuisance. Bars and patrons in the district will have ½-inch yellow silicone wristbands to identify them to officers as participants.
“We are a community based on tourism; we’re not going to run our tourists off,” Young said. “If they are doing something wrong or being a jerk about it, then obviously … it depends on the other person’s behavior. We’re not here to hose anybody.
“I don’t think it is going to be an every weekend Mardi Gras around here.”
Two agents from the Arkansas Alcoholic Beverage Control Division attended the meeting to address fears that bar owners have about their liability related to customers leaving with drinks. The state law allowing the creation of entertainment districts supersedes previous regulations against possession and consumption of alcohol outside an establishment serving alcohol.
Jeff Gregory, whose wife owns the Cathouse Lounge on Armstrong Street, said his concern is people coming into his bar with drinks. While the Cathouse has staff to monitor the comings and goings of patrons and their drinks, other bars in Eureka Springs may not.
The ABC officials said that even within entertainment districts, bars are prohibited from overserving customers or serving underage drinkers.
“From our perspective it makes it a lot harder to figure out where they were overserved at if they can go from business to business to business,” said ABC agent Craig Stout, a former Fayetteville Police Department sergeant. “This is uncharted territory.”
Berry and members of the mayor’s entertainment district task force told Gregory that opting in as a participant doesn’t mean a bar owner has to allow outside drinks in.
Social Drinking
The ordinance calls for participants to have a wristband or approved container, but Berry and Young said the chief concern was bottles or cans being carried in the street.
Kendra Hughes, a task force member who owns six businesses in Eureka Springs with her wife, said selling the wristbands to drinkers who want to leave with a drink can be a moneymaking opportunity. She also said bars could have promotional cups.
That led to a question from the audience about trash and recycling discarded plastic cups. Berry said the city’s Public Works Department had assured him that it doesn’t expect cleanup to be any additional expense and that if garbage increases, then more garbage cans will be used.
“It is hard to do an economic study on something that hasn’t been done before, but we don’t see a downside,” Berry said. “We really think it is going to help the economic vitality of Eureka Springs.”
Berry said the ordinance also says the fire chief or police chief can suspend the entertainment district for matters of public health and safety. That’s another reason the district ends at 10 p.m. rather than lasting until bars close at 2 a.m.
“Those folks who are drinking from 10-2 are more likely to be drinking to get drunk than drinking socially, so they should be put away in a bar for the night where they are not drunk on the street and being loud and a nuisance,” Hughes said. “We tried to keep the time limited to avoid exactly that.”
Hughes said Eureka Springs is a walkabout kind of town with numerous walking and ghost tours. Berry said the entertainment district will simply allow visitors the ability to walk with a drink in their hands.
“It is definitely a walking and outdoor town,” Hughes said. “People are not inclined to sit in one place here. It frees the customer up a little bit, keeps them from being bound to a place.”
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