If you don't write the new ordinance to DEMAND that "restaurants" and "restaurants & taverns" maintain at least 50% of their gross sales in food, the new law will be just as useless as the one it is inteneded to replace. What difference does it matter if food is offered to the patrons, if nobody is actually buying any of it? Let's be honest here and call the proposed class B licenses by their real name: a bar. Yes, not every restaurant or restaurant and tavern owner will choose to operate that way, but the law provides them with a loophole big enough to drive a beer truck through if they want to.

Given the way the current ordinance is written, the City has exactly zero recourse if the owner of a "restaurant" with a liquor license averages 95% of gross sales in liquor, provided that they offer the food to the patrons. It would appear that we are seriously contemplating enacting a new ordinance that will be just as impotent as the old one. Please read through Geneva's liquor licensing ordinance; they appear to have gotten it right.

Mr. Townsend: I am curious if you can explain to all of us just how, currently, the operation of a class B license holder is materially different from that of a class C license holder in St. Charles?

I do not know what kind of license Scotland Yard held before they were shut down, but I imagine it was a class B license. I'm pretty sure Pub 222, the Beehive and McGoo's all hold class B licenses, same as Taste of Himalayas just one block away, or Francesca's three blocks away. However, how may calls for police service do Taste of Himalayas or Francesca's generate to have them come break up drunken fights vs. calls for service to break up fights at the bars on Main Street? They all hold the same kind of license; how can this be?

That is my point. If you are going to attempt to regulate the consumption of alcohol in any meaningful way, you need to separate the true bars (places that exist primarily to serve alcohol, even if they serve food as well) from places that operate primarily as restaurants, but happen to serve alcohol as well. Geneva's ordinance allows for an unlimited number of liquor licenses to be issued to restaurants (meaning that they genereate at least 50% of their sales from food), but have only a handful of liquor licenses for bars. We "cap" the number of licenses we issue, but then just increase the "cap" by one, every time a new bar/restaurant comes in and asks for a license. We have only the illusion of control, not actual, meaningful control.

Mr. Townsend:

Perhaps a better way to put this all into perspective is to simply tell us all what 8 establishments currently hold Class C liquor license holders in this town. Our current ordinance caps the number of Class C license holders at 8, so there are obviously only a maximum of 8 true "bars" in this town. What and where are they? This is all FoIA-able public information, so there are obviously no problems with disclosure issues here. If we knew where the true "bars" are located vs. where the "restaurants" and "restaurants/taverns" were located, we could all come to a better understanding of how effective our current ordinance is, based on the what the licenses say should be potential problems vs. where we know the actual problems to be located. Because common sense says that when a group of 24 year-olds go out to "go have a good time," they are going to go to a bar (class C license) - all too often with resultant societal problems. But when a married couple goes out to have a dinner together and maybe split a bottle of wine, they will go to a restaurant (class B license).

We don't disagree that there could be greater steps taken to differentiate the types of establishments. One of the purposes of the proposed changes is to address that. The unanimous vote of a committee of the City Council also recognizes that some adjustments are desired.

If you review the city’s ordinances, you will see that restaurant-class licenses define the operation as one where the PRIMARY business conducted on premises shall be the service of meals. The same is true for restaurant/tavern-class licenses. In that respect, our ordinance is no different than Geneva’s or Batavia’s.

In your original post, you suggest that a 50% standard be used as a “bright-line” test. The standard sounds good in theory; however, practical application must be considered. As an example, a “fine dining” restaurant could serve wine or other alcoholic drinks where the gross sales from those products would exceed that of the meals served with it.

Your original comments also suggested that the city is somehow responsible for dictating consumer behavior by requiring the consumption of food. That’s not only impractical, it’s impossible. The only thing that the city can mandate is that food/meals be available. In addition, we can – and have – taken action to ensure that individuals are held responsible if they choose to consume alcohol - or establishments that serve alcohol - in an irresponsible manner.

If you’d like to meet and talk, an open invitation exists.

Mr. Townsend:
I sincerely appreciate the offer, but if you don't mind, I'd prefer to continue this discussion in the virtual public square that is the patch. This way, the beneficiaries of the discussion can be the whole of the community, not just the two of us. Since perception and education are virtually as important as reality, I prefer to concentrate on the public perception and education end of things.

As most everyone in town recognizes, we have a bit of a problem with the number of bars/taverns/restaurants in town. We have a high number of drunken fights, disorderly conduct, and DUI's that happen in this, the "#1 Town for Families in America." Additionally, City Council was led to pass a public urination law about a year ago; if there was not an underlying reason for the need to utilize the law, then why did they pass it? These things seem to be at odds with each other; what we think of ourselves as being, and what we have actually become. We have a significant disconnect here.

Yes, the current and proposed ordinance says that the "intent" of the law is that "restaurants" and "restaurants and taverns" have their "primary business...be the service of meals." The problem is that it nowhere defines "primary" or offers any guidance or rules for what will happen if the "primary" business really turns out to be the sale of alcohol. The difference between a "restaurant/tavern" and a "tavern" is thus a difference without a distinction.

(con't) Given that, Council authorizes liquor licenses for what they think will be restaurants, but then find out too late that they operate more like a bar. How can good public policy be a possible result when the outcome is completely unknown?

I find it very curious that the 50% "bright-line" rule works just fine for Geneva (and also used to work just fine for St. Charles as well, before it was stripped from our own ordinance). I do not recall reports of Geneva having to pass a public urination law, or send in their police force on a regular basis to break up drunken fights in their downtown. Yet, they have a fine dining nightlife that is far superior to our own.

The many fine dining establishments in Geneva do not at all seem hampered by the 50% "bright-line" test - in fact, they seem to thrive on it. How is that possible? Could it be possible that patrons of fine dining establishments (the exact type of patron you forwarded that you would like to attract more of to our own downtown) want to have their fine dining experience absent of street brawls, people urinating on the sides of buildings, and people vomiting on the sidewalks? Despite the intense lure of an opportunity to be a real gentleman for his date, I do not know any gentlemen who are actively seeking out opportunities to take off their coat and lay it down on the sidewalk so that their date does not have to step in a puddle of vomit.

(con't) Finally, I am not forwarding that the City dictate the consumption of food with alcohol sales. What I am forwarding is that the consumption of alcohol has enough inherent problems associated with it that society has felt the need to regulate its consumption in public. Thus, we have liquor licensing ordinances, and a host of other laws associated with the production, distribution, and sale of alcohol, at the Federal, State, and local levels.

For a liquor licensing ordinance to have any possibility of being effective, it must differentiate between the underlying purposes of the establishments holding the liquor licenses. That way, the Council has at least a fighting chance of making decisions based on reasonably understandable outcomes. I am arguing for more certainty in the process. Geneva's ordinance provides exactly that level of certainty. Our ordinance used to do that, but no longer does. The proposed new ordinance does nothing to address this problem, and if we adopt it as it currently stands, we will all find ourselves, five years from now, scratching our heads as to why a town that is so chock full of "restaurants" acts and feels so much like a college campus bar district.

I don't have any background in this area but maybe some suggestions:

Instead of trying to get restaurants and bars to regulate how much liquor and food they serve maybe there should be a necessary square footage relegated to serving food and liquor. For every 500 square feet of bar area there needs to be 1,500 square feet of food service area in order to have a certain license.

Cutting the serving hours would be a practical way to alleviate the late night drinking too but then you are taking money out of the bar's pockets.

I'm just throwing out thoughts.

Also, as far as DUIs- 99% of the people leaving bars at 1:00 AM are drunk. Sorry, there is no way around it. So if the police and community really wanted to stop drinking and driving they could/should arrest 99 out of 100 patrons when they get in their cars.