Entertainment District Passes First Reading with Some Opposition

A slim majority passed the first reading of a controversial resolution.

The Harrison City Council voted to pass the first reading of a resolution to create an entertainment district in Historic Downtown Harrison with a 5-3 vote on Thursday night.

The measure will have to have at least five votes on its next two readings, which will happen in October and November at the regular city council meeting.

Matt Bell, Executive Director of the Harrison Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, is leading the charge once again after failing to get the council’s support two years ago on this issue. Since then, Mountain Home has created an entertainment district in their downtown and have seen a 54% increase in traffic for that area according to Bell. He says it is what Harrison needs to create growth in the downtown.

The entertainment district gets boiled down to the presence of alcohol by many. The district will allow people to purchase alcohol from a participating business within the district and put it a specially designated cup and then walk around downtown with the open container. People will also be able to visit other stores that have opted in to be a part of the district with their cup of alcohol.

The district will not allow people to bring open containers from outside the district into it and any alcohol consumed must be in the marked containers that will be proved by participating businesses to anyone who wishes to take a drink outdoors within the district.

All of those that voiced opposition to the resolution Thursday night cited their beliefs that alcohol will cause an increase in drunk driving, public intoxication, and alcoholism. Police Chief Chris Graddy said that in his conversations with the Mountain Home Police Department they say they have not seen an increase in those issues since the passage of their entertainment district. In fact, they claim it has sparked the opposite result. Before the district was created, they had a problem with loitering in the downtown area that was mostly closed at night.

“Now that the downtown area is open, they’ve kind of run that crowd off,” Graddy said.

One speaker was Mayoral Candidate Rhonda Watkins who asked who would be monitoring the alcohol consumption and potential for drunk driving.

Bell responded, “So we have police officers in this community that enforce the law.”

Watkins noted that the police department has moved away from the south end of town and that they would have to travel from their new location on Industrial Park Road to the square in the case of public intoxication or drunk driving.

Chief Graddy had already addressed the potential for both of these possibilities saying they are still illegal, and the laws will be enforced as they always have.

Bell ended the discussion with Watkins by saying that there is little difference between there being open containers downtown and a business selling packaged alcohol to someone who might get in their car and consume it.

“Either you’re not addressing anything whatsoever, tons of respect for you ma’am, but these question…, you know where my office is, you’ve known me for many years. If you really wanted to be educated and not do a show here for this audience you would have stopped by on your own time,” Bell said.

Soon after that Mayor Jerry Jackson called an end to the public comment portion of the meeting and asked the council to vote. After a seconded motion Mitch Magness made a brief statement noting that no councilperson is 100% for or against this or any other resolution.

“None of these decisions are made where it’s a yes or no from us,” he said, “and when we get this input … we have to consider every option. For me personally I understand both sides.”

He said it boils down to a debate between the use of alcohol and the business aspect of the resolution.

“One question that comes to me is that if you are opposed to this, have we come up with any alternatives? We know that the square in in significant decline in the last few years. Is anything going to change with this?” he asked.

He went on the say that simply voting yes or no is easy, but that hearing the input from both sides is important.

He continued, “Every action we take, every vote we take is based on more information that you’ve just heard tonight, we’ve got a lot of input on this.”

Once finished Mayor Jackson had City Clerk Jeff Pratt call the role which saw five council members voting yes including Jeremy Ragland, Mary Jean Creager, Mitch Magness, Bill Boswell, and Joel Williams. Votes against the resolution came from Larry Phillips, Reed Petty, and Wayne Cone.

With the necessary five vote majority the resolution passed its first reading and will be voted on again in each of the next two months.

Public comment will be taken at the council meetings in October and November as well.