Gulf Shores alcohol ban discussion set for Nov. 21

BY JOHN MULLEN johnm@gulfcoastmedia.com
Posted 11/14/16

GULF SHORES, AL – City officials will discuss the spring break alcohol ban at its Monday work session and will likely be keeping it on the books for 2017.

“I’d be very surprised if anybody …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Subscribe to continue reading. Already a subscriber? Sign in

Get the gift of local news. All subscriptions 50% off for a limited time!

You can cancel anytime.
 

Please log in to continue

Log in

Gulf Shores alcohol ban discussion set for Nov. 21

Posted

GULF SHORES, AL – City officials will discuss the spring break alcohol ban at its Monday work session and will likely be keeping it on the books for 2017.

“I’d be very surprised if anybody at all questioned doing it again,” Mayor Robert Craft said. “I’m 100 percent for it and I believe strongly that our council is, too.”

Because of the changing dates in spring break the law must come before the council yearly, Councilman Steve Jones said.

“It’s an ordinance relating to alcohol and since the dates of spring break change every year it’s something we have to revisit every year to establish the dates,” Jones said.

About midway through last year’s spring break season, the ban was voted into place at a special meeting on March 18. Unruly crowds of students were massing on beaches daily and stretching the limits of law enforcement being able to control them.

During the week of March 14-20 alone Gulf Shores police arrested 249 people, most for alcohol offensives. Orange Beach had similar numbers during spring break.

“In the days following the ban last year we experienced a remarkable improvement in the behavior on, and the condition of, our beaches,” Police Chief Ed Delmore said. “I think it's absolutely necessary that the ban be implemented - during spring break - again this year.”

The city, Craft says, is continuing its effort to market Gulf Shores to families during spring break.

“It’s always been our focus to be as family-centric as we can be in all cases,” Craft said. “What we’re planning on doing, not just in spring break but in the spring time when we have a lot of area schools on vacation, we try to create opportunities.

“They are going to go somewhere and we want them to come here. We want them to come here as a group and we want to put together as many elements of opportunities to get a broader group.”

Craft sited a Spring Hill College volleyball tournament as the type of events he’d like to see during spring break. The area already hosts lots of baseball and softball tournaments for high school teams in the spring.

“It's trying to take advantage of the spring break crowd in a way other than going to the beach and drinking beer,” he said.

Jones said this type of college crowd is the ones city leaders would like to see coming for spring break.

“You’re not going to get as much trouble out of student athletes as from the average college that wants to come in for spring break and raise hell,” he said.

Reggie Pulliam of Coastal Alabama Insurance and Financial Services says several of his clients have expressed concerns over the ban, but understands why it was implemented.

“We’re not necessarily saying we want to overturn the ban, we just want to hear the reasons why they are doing it and the reasons why they think it’s going to be most effective,” Pulliam said. “We’ll be gathering the information about what will be happening to the economy and if they are taking that into consideration at all. All economic models point to it’s going to have a negative effect to local businesses.”

Jones said it is impossible to gauge the impact until after having the ban through a full spring break season. The ban dates voted on in March went from March 1 to April 17.

“We will implement this ban to reflect spring Break dates for 2017 and evaluate after we see the results of that action,” Jones said.

Some of the businesses Pulliam has heard from include Beach House Kitchen and Cocktails, the Hangout, Sassy Bass, Papa Rocco’s and Blonde Johns, among others.

“Hopefully the city officials have done some research and understand the consequences of their decision,” Pulliam said. “It’s not just a knee-jerk reaction and I don’t think that it was. I hope there has been some study and some contemplation behind the decision.”

Geoff Gaberino of Gulf Shores Vacation Rentals said he is in favor of the ban.

“We don’t rent to student groups so the impact to us is not lost revenue,” Gaberino said. “We’ve been doing that for five or six years. We haven’t rented to student groups for six years and haven’t seen our revenue fall accordingly.”

But, he says, the unruly students can have an effect on his business in other ways.

“The students are not in our house but they are around us and they actually impact the experience of our guests,” he said. “The students around us are acting like idiots and impacting negatively groups that are staying in our houses.”