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CITY COUNCIL
Columbus city council members approved an ordinance that would amend an ordinance article regarding the sale of alcoholic beverages near schools, churches, or hospitals to aid in the opening of a cigar bar and lounge on 1416 Walnut St by Dollar General.
The approval comes after city council members discussed the article amending done for other properties, such as the Columbus Golf Course, that allows the sale of alcoholic beverages on their property despite being within 1,000 feet of said institutions.
Representatives of Cigar Spot, the name of the lounge coming to town, asked council members to consider the article amendment given that their property is located 0.9 miles away from the nearest school, and to have leeway given the fact that the location of their property was the only one available due to the hotness of properties in town.
“That’s one of the things that we always had kind of been an issue with the availability of the space in town,” said the Cigar Spot representative. “I mean, the property is so hot and busi- ness with that magnitude to have a cigar lounge, is going to require parking. It’s going to require a big setup. And this was the idea of revisions that we found.”
According to one of the Cigar Spot representatives, work has already been done, the lease is already signed, and they have invested close to $250,000. The representatives said they had gone through every process accordingly, and we’re looking to get things going when this issue came along.
“We thought that we wouldn’t have any problems when it came to licensing,” said the Cigar Spot representative. “That’s when we found out that this is the issue that’s going on. I know the town can definitely use something unique, something different, a hangout spot at night. It’s going to require us to have some alcoholic beverages. That’s the only thing that’s keeping us from doing this.”
City council members used the Columbus Golf Course as an example, citing how as long as the schools are okay with it and don’t give any pushback, which they did not with the golf course, then the article amendment would go through smoothly.
“It’s relative to location,” said council member Ronny Daley. “Relative to the school, because if the school doesn’t object, and we already have got all of the golf courses, that should be okay.”
Council members also approved to install two more stop signs, converting the intersection of Jackson and Back St. into a four-way stop sign right of way.
Complaints were made by Columbus residents about the intersection at the previous council meeting on Oct. 15, prompting council members to add the issue to the agenda and act.
City Manager Donald Warschak said that given the movement of traffic and even a daycare located just behind one of the streets, the four-way stop sign seems like a “no brainer.”
“Requesting to install two more stop signs at that intersection, making it a complete stop,” said Warschak. “Right now, the traffic movement has stopped going north and south on Back St. These two stop signs would stop traffic going east and west on Jackson St. Having looked at it, our recommendation is to go ahead and install those initial signs. One of the reasons being is we have a daycare that’s behind between Back St. and Fannin. It would help provide safety by stopping traffic in there and sucking it down.”
Council members also another concern brought about by concerned residents at the previous city council meeting, discussing issues over trailers parked in city easements and rights of way.
A new food truck ordinance was recently adopted, but council members discussed the possibility of adding a modification to it that would “not allow food trucks to be parked in city’s rights of ways, whether they are in business or not open for business.”
One issue regarding the ordinance is the classification of what a commercial vehicle is, which in this specific case, classifies a vehicle as non-commercial if a singular axle is not over 6,000 pounds.
Council member Chuck Rankin questioned why parking on the street on a “consistent basis or in a right of way would not be restricted just because it falls within the loopholes of the ordinance.”
“I think we should have something that restricts it,” said Rankin. “That might be the quickest and easiest way to address this. We will go back and recast our food truck ordinances and reword them, but also again look at expanding our overall parking ordinance.”
