SUNBURY — Sunbury is moving forward with plans to allow people to carry alcoholic drinks between participating businesses in a designated area downtown — and City Council wants to get it started as soon as possible.
Council unanimously approved the city’s designated outdoor refreshment area, or DORA, Wednesday after also voting to declare the ordinance an emergency, eliminating the normal 30-day waiting period before it takes effect.
The approval comes after months of discussion and an April community survey that drew more than 900 responses. According to City Administrator Daryl Hennessy, 85% of respondents supported creating a DORA around Sunbury Square.
The decision doesn’t mean visitors can immediately begin carrying drinks outside. The city still needs approval from the Ohio Division of Liquor Control, signage must be installed and participating businesses must be identified.
But eliminating the waiting period could bring the DORA online 30 days sooner than it otherwise would.
Council had already completed the three required readings of the ordinance when Law Director David Brehm told members Wednesday that he had researched whether they could legally expedite the process.
The question had been raised during previous discussions and again by an interested party before Wednesday’s meeting.
“Her point was we’re losing the summer,” Brehm told council. “It’s 30 more days.”
Brehm said declaring the ordinance an emergency would eliminate that delay while still requiring the city to complete the remaining steps.
“It would cut 30 days off, but that doesn’t mean — I don’t know how long liquor control is going to take,” he said. “That’s outside of our control.”
Hennessy also cautioned that the DORA won’t become operational immediately.
“We’ve still got to order the signs. We’ve still got to get them placed,” Hennessy said. “The chamber still needs to kind of canvas the businesses, figure out who’s going to be a participating vendor.”
Mayor Joe St. John said he had previously asked whether the approval process could be expedited and supported doing so after the city received no opposition during the ordinance’s three readings.
“We’ve had nobody other than proponents of this, and the people that I talked to are looking forward to this as well,” St. John said.
Council first voted unanimously to add the emergency language before unanimously approving the ordinance itself.
The emergency declaration states that accelerating implementation would allow qualifying liquor permit holders to begin participating sooner and provide anticipated economic and recreational benefits to residents.
