New Philadelphia mayor Joel Day can now submit the city’s application for a designated outdoor drinking area downtown.
During Monday’s council meeting, members voted 6-to-1 to authorize the paperwork, which now heads to the Ohio department of commerce. The only no was from Councilwoman Cheryl Ramos, who grilled the mayor about the proposal.
“The cost to the city, do we know?”
“The cost would be the same cost that we incur when we have [a special event like] Art on the Alley,” noted the Mayor Day.
Ramos added, “but we’re talking about a much wider area. The DORA area is much wider than Art on the Alley.”
“No, it’s not.”
The proposed DORA is for special events only and spans several blocks between First Drive and Second Street, with the beverage required to be carried in a designated cup purchased at participating establishments.
Supporters include downtown business owners Don Whittingham, Jessika Zontini, and Lacey Herbert Stephenson.
“Small businesses are not thriving and surviving like they used to, so we need to look at the example of how many communities that have no problems at all. Not one. You take a chance and if it doesn’t go well, and it does not meet the needs or the expectations we think it will be, guess what you can vote it out.”
Opponents were concerned about increased crime, littering, and other potential problems.
“How much revenue are you going to lose because of a large percentage of the population of the city because they decide they’re no longer going to do business downtown?”
Another resident stated, “it is my opinion, and we all have them, that DORA is not compatible with the image of this city. To me it is not progress but rather regress.”
Once liquor control greenlights the application, it will update the permits of the eight participating businesses to reflect the change.
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