COVINGTON, Ga. — The Covington Metropolis Council voted to revise its cigar lounge ordinance on Monday, March 2, altering the allowable space from the City Middle Combined-Use (TCM) zoning district to the Hall Combined-Use (CM) zoning district.
The council vote tied 3-3, with Mayor Fleeta Baggett breaking the tie in favor of the change. In doing so, Baggett voted alongside Council members Kim Johnson, Travis Moore and Jared Rutberg.
Johnson introduced forth the proposal to alter the zoning, offering perception into the rationale behind the consideration. She shared that a number of potential cigar lounge house owners had regarded on the vacant areas in TCM—which envelops a lot of the downtown space—however struggled to satisfy a requirement that prohibits companies from serving alcohol too near church buildings and colleges.
With out assembly this distance requirement, the lounges wouldn’t have the ability to get hold of alcohol permits.
Judy Thagard, town’s planning and growth director, stated extra about this state requirement for acquiring alcohol licenses.
“Our TCM zoning district has a number of locations of worship peppered all through the zoning district and likewise a few colleges that makes it fairly troublesome for a cigar lounge to find, ought to they select to even have alcohol as a part of what their enterprise mannequin could be,” Thagard stated.
State regulation prohibits the sale of distilled spirits inside 100 yards of any church and 200 yards of a faculty, per O.C.G.A. § 3-3-21(a)(1)(A). Equally, O.C.G.A. § 3-3-21(a)(1)(B) prohibits the sale of wine or malt drinks inside 100 yards of a faculty, with exceptions for grocery shops conducting retail gross sales for off-premises consumption.
Whereas the regulation doesn’t particularly prohibit cigar lounges from working shut to a college or church, council and workers anticipate that almost all cigar lounges would hunt down an alcohol license.
Johnson indicated that this stipulation has already dissuaded potential cigar lounges from opening up within the TCM district.
“The [old] BB&T location didn’t work out,” Johnson stated. “And in order that was like actually the one spot. So, to me, now to attempt to pressure a sq. peg right into a spherical gap…it’s too near locations of worship. It’s too shut to colleges. So I felt like at this level, if we tried to maneuver ahead with something apart from that exact [old BB&T] constructing, it will be an infringement on a church or a faculty.”
By altering the allowable zoning district to CM, town goals to create extra availability for future lounges to exist with out these setback struggles.
Moore described the change as “opening up extra stock” for the potential companies.
“The CM’s going to open it as much as Tempo Avenue, something up and down 278, a few of Washington, a few of Jackson,” Moore stated. “So for [applicants] to enter it, it’ll be so much simpler—there’ll be a bigger stock within the CM district than TCM.”
Thagard stated that if town initiated the planning textual content modification, it must subsequent go earlier than the planning fee. She anticipates that the planning fee would probably decide to maintain the use as by a particular use allow because it was in TCM, relatively than making it allowable by proper in CM.
“I do know that with the [old] firehouse, a number of of the outdated Ramsey buildings had been regarded into, and so they simply couldn’t meet that setback requirement to have the ability to get the alcohol license,” Thagard stated.
“…As a matter of reality, on the [old] firehouse—trigger we had a number of eating places that additionally needed to go there and promote alcohol—the state despatched us an e mail that they’d not think about that as a property that will be allowed to have an alcohol license.”
