MO: City takes closer look at tightening alcohol regulations

Columbia Tribune

By Caitlin Campbell

May 19, 2016

The city of Columbia will take a closer look at tightening alcohol regulations in hopes of deterring crime and improving public safety.

In a letter to the Columbia City Council last week, the Substance Advisory Commission urged the city to adopt stricter regulations on drink specials, an alternate enforcement structure for liquor license violations and regulations tied to the density of alcohol outlets. Commission Chairwoman Molly Borgmeyer wrote that the commission had suggested several policy changes, though only a few had been adopted by the council.

At the end of the city council’s Monday meeting, several members directed city staff to return with a proposal based on commission recommendations to tighten alcohol regulations. Since 2008, the commission has recommended many policies that drew no action from the city:

• Redirecting fines collected from businesses that sold alcohol to minors to a program for more consistent alcohol compliance checks.
• Using savings to create a position in the police department for alcohol enforcement.
• Implementing new administrative penalties for violations of liquor license standards, which would include a points system and harsher penalties for subsequent violations.

A recent assessment of the downtown area by the Responsible Hospitality Institute found that the city struggles with “incidents of violence, robbery, sexual assault, vandalism, crowd congestion, noise complaints, underage drinking, over-service of patrons and impairment of both pedestrians and drivers.” Borgmeyer said those challenges speak to the need for better alcohol policies and enforcement.

The commission compiled incident reports from the Columbia Police Department and found about 30.5 percent of incidents involved alcohol between 2013 and 2015. As the city continues to send police to areas dense with bars, Borgmeyer said, other areas end up losing resources.

The commission hopes to “further investigate the possibilities of alternative enforcement structures, the possibility of codes related to drink specials, and the possibility of implementing alcohol outlet density policies,” Borgmeyer wrote.

Both Second Ward Councilman Michael Trapp and Third Ward Councilman Karl Skala said they would like to see a bill implementing tighter alcohol regulations come back to the council.

Trapp said he would like the legal department to investigate increasing fines for liquor license violations and further regulating drink specials. He said he views increased regulation as a way to prevent future public safety issues associated with heavy drinking.

“We know drink specials are related to binge-drinking behavior, which leads to all sorts of other problems,” Trapp said. “We just don’t know the legal particulars of what we can do” to regulate these things.

Skala was not sure about the particulars of tighter regulations, but he said he would like to hold a meeting on alcohol policies to discuss potential ways to curb liquor license violations and problems associated with binge-drinking in the community. Skala said it’s an ideal time to talk about alcohol-related issues because of the council’s recent move to delay processing building permits for multifamily housing in the central city area until Dec. 1.

“Some of this is part of the fallout from high-density student housing downtown … and it’s causing a public safety issue,” Skala said. “We’ve got a bit of time to discuss these issues” with the development freeze, “and this is a topic we can address.”

Numerous bar owners declined to discuss the proposals or did not respond to messages seeking comment.