Regal Crown will hold a beer garden at the Lisbon City Park during the softball tournaments at Sauerkraut Days festival.
The council had begun the discussion on the matter at its meeting July 12, before coming to a 3-0 vote to allow the beer garden at its meeting July 26. Lisbon city council member Nathan Smith was not present and Lisbon city council member Sara Nost abstained from voting, because her family’s business would be the one who would be running the beer garden at the tournament this year.
The Lisbon City Council had to take votes at two separate times on the matter, as an initial motion died for lack of a second.
Lisbon city council member John Bardsley stated he had not been aware of how much alcohol had been consumed at the softball tournaments in the past, and really struggled with beer or alcohol being allowed in the park.
After that failed motion, members of the Sauerkraut Days executive committee met outside council chambers to address their issues with the beer garden at the park and try to come up with a solution for all entities to move forward. The committee returned stating they’d be okay with the beer garden at the park.
“We’re willing to work with Regal Crown on what we hope for policing ahead of Thursday’s ice cream social and fireworks show,” said Jerry Dietsch, Lisbon Sauerkraut Days committee president. “Our conflict is with a family friendly event being in close proximity to alcohol at the park, but it’s only for two hours that we would have an issue in the park, and we know strict enforcement of alcohol in the park is going to be more of a negative than a positive.”
Dietsch noted that the Sauerkraut Days committee doesn’t want to cancel the ice cream social, and as long as they can work with those running the beer garden to mitigate the alcohol not proceeding from that garden into the park at large, the committee would be okay with a beer garden operating at the city park, as that is the only activity to have a conflict at the park for the committee.
Lisbon public works director and softball tournament organizer Travis Bagby explained that a hard-line approach on alcohol in the park for the softball tournaments would have many of the adult teams not participating. That could further impact attendance of the Sauerkraut Days festivities, upwards of 100 people by Bagby’s estimates, and possibly lead to the cancelation of the tournament.
Lisbon city council member Stephanie Kamberling said that while she didn’t understand why anyone would want to run a beer garden at the softball tournaments, she preferred to have someone with Training for Intervention Procedures and a servers license monitoring alcohol use at the park than not allowing any alcohol at the park this year. That measure would give the city more coverage if there was an issue.
Sara Nost explained that as someone running the beer garden, that she could help stop people from bringing their own alcohol into the park and make sure people are not drinking to excess at the tournaments, which would be an improvement over the alcohol use at the parks in years past.
Mount Vernon-Lisbon Police chief Doug Shannon said that policing wasn’t about having confrontations with people about alcohol use, it was more about having a presence and letting people aware of the rules they need to comply with this year to enjoy alcohol at the softball tournaments if they want to partake. The beer would not be allowed in the general park, and there would be separation between areas children are to keep those underage from the alcohol. Shannon and the Nosts will work to figure out where to place the boundaries for the fences at the park.
“My goal here is to make sure we have clarity from the city on their position of alcohol in the park,” Shannon said.
The council was unable to make any changes to the ordinance impacting alcohol use at the park, as any ordinance change would take three readings and a public hearing to change. The city’s current ordinance allows those with alcohol licenses to set up a beer garden at the park to allow alcohol sales within the confines of a beer garden.
Bardsley was the only dissenting vote in the first vote, but because of Nost’s abstention, the matter still failed.
After further council discussion, Bardsley then made a motion to allow a beer garden at this year’s Sauerkraut Days as a trial run, which passed in a 3-0 vote. Bardsley said he would like to revisit that ordinance in the future to address the alcohol use in city parks.
Regal Crown will offer a beer garden at softball tournaments
August 5, 2021
About the Contributor
Nathan Countryman, Editor
Nathan Countryman is the Editor of the Mount Vernon-Lisbon Sun.