Common Council approves ordinance creating Downtown Outdoor Refreshment Area

Wednesday, June 21, 2023 at 6:57 AM

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Individuals cannot currently carry alcohol purchased at Shelbyville establishments or vendors around the Public Square during downtown events.

That will change after the Common Council approved the Designated Outdoor Refreshment Area ordinance Wednesday morning at City Hall.

“We had a meeting with a lot of the bar owners downtown and representatives from the church next to us here about a month ago and there were mixed emotions on it,” said councilman Scott Furgeson in the council pre-meeting. “One bar owner did not really care for it much.

“What this does is give everybody the opportunity to free carry alcohol downtown, which is currently against the law. It will allow somebody from Pudder’s to grab a beer and go outside and enjoy the music or whatever. I think it is what we want as a city and what the mayor envisioned when we re-did the downtown. I think it’s a good ordinance to have. I think it’s a positive for the city, not a negative.”

The Downtown Outdoor Refreshment Area includes all of the Public Square and extends south on Harrison St. to Broadway St. and east along E. Washington St. and Jackson St. to Pike St.

Downtown establishments currently have designated seating areas outside their businesses that are cordoned off to keep people from leaving with alcohol. The new ordinance will allow for the cordoned off areas to be removed.

“We’ve been discussing this for years,” said Shelbyville Mayor Tom DeBaun in the pre-meeting. “It allows us to eliminate the stanchions as well because we get a lot of complaints about how much space we are taking up on the Public Square for seating. In the end, this gives us more of a free-flowing atmosphere.”

The common council ordinance follows statewide approval for downtown refreshment areas that goes into effect July 1.

Brandy Coomes, Executive Director of Mainstreet Shelbyville, lauded the ordinance that will loosen restrictions for downtown events.

“As a statewide program, Indiana Mainstreet has lobbied for this to go through,” she said. “It gives more freedom of drawing people downtown and having events and going through less red tape once all the steps are established in our local community.”

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