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School to host barbecue
East Gaston High School is holding a barbecue that will be catered by Big Man’s on Friday, Sept. 26 from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Cost is $7 per plate and can be eat in, take out or drive thru. Tickets must be redeemed by 9 p.m. and there will be no refunds.
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“Friday Night Live” seeks larger beer garden
By THOMAS LARK
- Thu, Mar 6, 2008
BELMONT—The “Friday Night Live” concert series is seeking a larger beer garden.
That’s what Vince Hill told the Belmont City Council at its Monday regular meeting. The owner-operator of Caravan Coffee, Hill is also president of the Belmont Downtown Merchants Association and a major organizer of “Friday Night Live.” This year, he said, there will be eight concerts—up from three in 2007—starting May 16 and running every other week.
And the sale of beer is inseparable from the festive feeling surrounding the event, Hill noted, citing similar events held elsewhere—all of them featuring the sale of beer and non-fortified wine in controlled environments.
“We brought in more than 10,000 people to Belmont last year,” he said of the event’s positive impact.
But last year’s beer garden, confined to a tiny space in the car park immediately adjacent Caravan, was simply too small. In fact, said Hill, many people didn’t even know it was there. He requested that council consider enlarging the specially permitted drinking space to encompass an area from the music stage to the Norfolk-Southern railroad track to the perimeter of Stowe Park, thus enabling the beer-drinkers to actually see the bands playing rather than being clustered only inside the ridiculously small confines of last year’s designated beer garden.
Councilman Charlie Flowers noted that Main Street was a state-maintained road, thus the permission of the state would be required to enlarge the beer garden to include the street. Hill said he’d already contacted representatives of North Carolina Alcohol Law Enforcement, who said the onus is on the city of Belmont.
City Attorney Parks Wilson said Flowers was correct in his assessment and that the state must indeed approve such a thing, thus preventing council from voting on that particular aspect of the matter at its meeting.
And Flowers observed that, whenever the vote came, he would oppose it, “due to what alcohol and drugs have done to my tribal people and this whole country.”
Belmont Police Department Chief David James said the events were tame last year, even with the sale of alcohol.
“We didn’t have any issue with that,” said James. “Things were very controlled.”
But the chief did say that widening the beer garden’s boundaries would mean more work for the BPD, probably including the addition of at least two extra police officers who would be paid overtime.
“It would probably mean a little bit more of a burden for us,” he said, “but you want to be on the safe side for events like this.”
Hill said he’d like to see a one-time decision by council, meaning “Friday Night Live” would have the same alcohol-related specifications year after year. But Wilson said that legally the matter would need to be taken up year by year, as events and changes could dictate.
“You won’t resolve this here tonight,” he said.
Wilson recommended further discussion with NCALE. James said the BPD could consult its police attorney, Stephanie Webster of the Gastonia Police Department.
Council agreed to take up the alcohol matter again at its April 7 regular meeting. But it did vote unanimously to approve the usual street closings for “Friday Night Live,” following a respective motion and second from Councilman Charlie Martin and Councilwoman Martha Stowe.
In other news, Chairman Kevin Loftin of Downtown Belmont, Inc. asked for and received a total of $27,500 as a supplemental funding request for DBI, following a unanimously approved motion and second respectively made by Councilman Dick Cromlish and Martin.
Council also unanimously approved adopting ordinances to allow the following rezoning requests:
•amending the zoning map to rezone four acres parcels of land—some 2.51 acres at 6649 Wilkinson Boulevard in the Montcross Commercial Development Area—from Business Campus Development to Highway Commercial, following a Flowers-Martin motion;
•amending the zoning map to to initially zone some 40.8 acres on Lower Armstrong Road as General Residential, following a Martin-Cromlish motion;
•and non-contiguously annexing a tract of land of some 45.99 acres (the Shea property) on South Point Road, following a Flowers-Martin motion.
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