Columbus city leaders look to pass ‘red cup law’ for downtown
Officials believe the red cup district law would promote innovation and foot traffic in the downtown area.
COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – Columbus city leaders want to attract more business downtown, and they believe a new option for enjoying adult beverages could help.
The city council is exploring the establishment of a leisure district downtown through a red cup law which. It would allow people to carry alcoholic beverages from one business to the other.
Officials believe the red cup district law would promote innovation and foot traffic in the downtown area.
Many cities surrounding Columbus already have the leisure district law, allowing citizens to walk the area, carrying beer and one from one place to another, which would increase foot traffic and events within the downtown area.
“Anytime you do something like that, there are some concerns about will cause problems with people drinking too much or not behaving themselves once they’re out on the streets with the cups,” Mayor Keith Gaskin said. “Our chief of police has had experience with this and was just taking a close look.”
“We have to maintain law and order and if the city council decides to adopt this order we’re gonna have to make provisions to make sure the safety of our citizens in the downtown area is there,” Columbus Police Chief Joseph Daughtry said.
Business owners and city leaders believe this law could enhance the nightlife of the downtown area, and potentially bring in more shops, restaurants, and bars.
“I think the way it’s gonna help us more is whenever people are coming in on a wait they can sit outside and have a drink outside,” Zachary’s owner Doug Pellum said. “With that new red cup law, they’re able to have a couple of cocktails while waiting on their table.”
“It’s less about actually helping our business as much as it is bringing more activities downtown,” Munson and Brothers owner Ryan Munson said. “When you bring more activities downtown, that helps everybody’s business. With the Columbus Arts Council and Main Street, we do an art walk. I would love to see a wine and cheese walk. It just makes events better to be able to have some alcohol with restrictions.”
Gaskin said there will be certain rules in place.
“It would be a restricted time. It would not be all day or anything like that it would just be a certain amount of time,” Gaskin said. “The cups would be specifically marked so that we could tell it was someone that purchased inside one of the restaurants in the leisure area. It would also help us monitor trash being thrown on the street because of the new policy.”
Daughtry said that failure is not an option within the Columbus Police Department, and they will have to adapt as they go along.
“It’s gonna be trial and error,” Daughtry said. “We’re going to have to try and see.”
The city council will vote on the law on Tuesday, June 20, and law enforcement as well as business will begin preparing for the changes if the law passes.
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