Unclear rules could hamper district

Baton Rouge’s alcohol laws are confusing at best, inconsistently enforced at worst, and unless addressed in the rapidly growing downtown area they could interfere with the fledgling Arts and Entertainment District.

How confusing are our liquor rules?

The parish ordinance that makes drinking in public a crime grants no waiver for boozing on the sidewalk, even in front of the bar where the drinks came from. But if you buy the booze at a restaurant’s bar and drink it outside then you’re OK. Similarly, there’s an exemption allowing restaurants (but not bars) to sell liquor on Sundays as long as at least 60% of sales come from food rather than liquor.

Uneven enforcement is a problem as well. Open containers of alcohol are OK at events like Live After Five, FestForAll and Sunday in the Park, but only during certain hours and in certain areas.

Then there are the big parades—Spanish Town Mardi Gras and St. Patrick’s Day. Half of Baton Rough turns out, it seems, cold beer in hand, to watch the floats roll past. But unless you’re inside a bar or a private residence watching the action through a window, it’s illegal to drink along the parade routes. Yet police clearly allow it to go on.

“Anybody who’s walking down the street with an open container at a parade is taking their chances,” says Lea Anne Batson, an assistant parish attorney and an expert on our Byzantine booze ordinances. “I’m not aware of any blanket exception for parades.”

City-parish officials may have to find common ground between downtown business owners pushing to relax some liquor laws and opponents who prefer no public drinking at all.

One of those pushing for relaxing some of the liquor rules is Jack Warner, co-owner of some of downtown’s newest bars and clubs: Happy’s Irish Pub, the Roux House and Schlittz & Giggles. For nearly two years, Warner has been pushing the notion of relaxing some of the rules downtown. His ideas and his occasionally brash manner rub some city regulators the wrong way.

Like a lot of people, Warner doesn’t understand why the parish’s liquor laws have to be so complicated. He can serve beer at his tables on the sidewalk at Schlittz & Giggles seven days a week, but not a block and a half away at Happy’s on any day of the week.

In fact, Alcohol Beverage Control Director Debi O’Neill recently ordered Warner and his business partner, Brandon Landry, to remove their tables from the sidewalk. “They are not supposed to have tables there and they know it,” O’Neill says.

Baton Rouge’s liquor rules may get even cloudier this election year. Candidates may be wary of offending conservative voters who would oppose any further loosening of liquor laws.

For example, if Warner had his way, officials would close Third Street to vehicular traffic and make it a pedestrian mall from North Boulevard to Main Street on Friday and Saturday nights between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. People could drink outside, but only within the newly created Arts and Entertainment District, and only in specially designed plastic cups available exclusively from businesses in the district. Money from the sale of the cups, which participating bar owners would pay for, would help fund trash pickup and extra police protection.

Ironically, Warner’s ideas are remarkably similar to what Mayor Kip Holden described to me three and a half years ago in an interview for the old South Baton Rouge Journal. According to a transcript of that recorded interview, when I asked the newly-elected Holden what he would like to see happen downtown Baton Rouge, he said: “We have to look at easing restrictions. We have to set the boundary lines and allow people to interact between different bars and restaurants.”

During that same 2005 interview, the mayor went on to say: “You may have objections from some religious forces (that) we’re trying to peddle alcohol all over the place, (that) there will be a bunch of kids running down the street and creating havoc in your town.”

The only open container downtown developer Danny McGlynn wants in the Arts and Entertainment District is a unique, brightly colored plastic cup available only from bars and restaurants in the area. Before a customer leaves a bar she would pour her drink from her glass into this special issue cup and carry it to her next destination. Anyone caught drinking alcohol from any other container could be charged by police.

In McGlynn’s plan, the bars pay for the cups. The cups would feature advertising space, which could be sold to benefit the Downtown Development District, or pay for additional police protection or trash pickup. The cup colors would change periodically to discourage people from trying to sneak their own cups.

But, the mayor added: “We have already Spanish Town Mardi Gras, literally thousands of people, nothing happens. We have festivals down here, thousands of people, nothing happens. People are walking the streets with open containers. … Sometimes you have to have the political will to stand up and say once and for all, we can’t be this backwards town. It does not mean plying people with alcohol. It simply allows people to have a drink. We’ll have an enforcement mechanism in place.”

Today the mayor is much more circumspect in his support of changing the alcohol laws downtown. When I read some of his previous comments back to him, the mayor said: “That does not say that I’m for go-cups. That statement is very general. It does not specifically indicate go-cups.”

Holden says he’ll leave decisions about open containers and limited street closures—which Warner, Boudreaux & Thibodeaux’s owner Danny McGlynn and others support—to the Downtown Development District.

Warner wants the mayor to lead the effort, not follow the bureaucrats. “The mayor’s the one person who could make it happen,” Warner says. “Kip has the vision, but it’s getting bogged down by the committees, by the meetings, by the task forces.”

Fellow downtown business owner McGlynn was pushing the idea of approved go-cups even before Warner—albeit more diplomatically. “It’s not about having a street party,” McGlynn says. “It is more a means of enforcement and generating revenue. Nobody wants a Bourbon Street.”

McGlynn says he’s frustrated with the pace of downtown revitalization, and in some respects he doesn’t see progress. He sees regression.

“We can no longer get a street closure,” he says. “We can, for practical purposes, not get a special event permit, and we can’t have tables and chairs out on the street. We’re going backwards as opposed to forwards.”

Frank McMains, owner of Red Star on Laurel Street, doesn’t favor closing Third Street. But he likes the idea of letting his customers take advantage of good weather.

“I would love to be able to put tables and chairs outside and serve beer,” he says. “I think if people were allowed to have a beer outside Red Star, the sun would still rise the next day.”

Brothers Rick and George Volland, owners of Capital City Grill, are about to open an upscale restaurant and bar next to Warner’s Roux House. They also see closing down Third Street on weekend nights as a safety issue. “Somebody’s going to get hit,” says Rick, who doesn’t see limited street closure as causing any additional problems. “It’s going to be the same amount of people,” he says. “They’re just going to be safer.”

McGlynn says he’s worried Warner’s outspoken style will result in a pushback from city officials.

“The thing about Schlittz & Giggles,” McGlynn says, “they’re going to audit him and if he’s selling more beer than pizza, they’re going to cite him and make him take (the tables) off the street, and here we lose another nice, fun thing for downtown.”

Warner says that’s not going to happen. He changed his original concept for Schlittz & Giggles to stay well within the 60% rule so he could stay open on Sundays. “I got five barstools instead of 25 barstools.”

Batson, the assistant parish attorney who helped draft the ordinance passed in March that set up the boundaries for the Arts and Entertainment District, tells 225: “There has been no mention of changing the ABC laws at any of the meetings in months. I can’t say they would never do that, but it’s been pushed way to the back burner at this point.”

Ultimately, the mayor and Metro Council must approve any changes for downtown. Councilwoman Lorri Burgess, whose district encompasses downtown, did not respond to multiple requests from 225 for an interview.

The Rev. Mark Holland, rector at St. James Episcopal Church, is someone who opposes any easing of the alcohol ordinances. He says he doesn’t want to clean up even more of a mess than he’s already got every Sunday morning. “I just don’t feel like getting up in the morning before church and having to pick up everybody’s discarded beer bottles.”

One downtown bar owner, who asked not to be identified, said the police department opposes any easing of the open-container law and limited street closures. “It does appear that the tail is wagging the dog, the tail being the police department, and telling the mayor’s office what to do,” the bar owner says.

Police spokesman Sgt. Don Kelly says that’s not true. “It’s not the department’s role to have opinions or take positions.”

In the end, it might be bar owners outside downtown that get the final say.

Bar owners in other parts of the city such as Tigerland near LSU may be among the staunchest opponents to changing downtown drinking rules. Last year, Darin Adams, who owns Reggie’s in Tigerland, said if the city allows open containers downtown, then it needs to allow them everywhere.

In a June 2007 article in Business Report, Adams claimed ABC agents set up in Reggie’s parking lot every weekend and wrote hundreds of open-container tickets. However, a review of ABC records revealed that of the 1,129 tickets its agents wrote in 2007, only 36 were for open-container violations. Most were for underage drinking.

Another downtown bar owner who asked not to be identified claims Tigerland bars are raking in tons of cash by selling alcohol to underage drinkers. “They ought to keep their mouths shut,” the owner says.