Strong conversations erupted during the city council meeting last night on October 25, 2022. 

The controversy surrounded the city’s move to establish an open container “entertainment district” in the downtown area, as city officials appeared to be moving far too hastily for many experienced business owners and local Uptown residents.

The ordinance would allow the public consumption of alcohol on city streets within certain guidelines, despite seventy years of scientific data showing that policies encouraging alcohol consumption result in higher rates of homicide and violent crime.

While younger, less experienced business owners want council to rush through and approve the ordinance, many older and more experienced business owners are urging council to slow down and exercise caution.

Buddy Nelms, most notably known for The Loft, shared his concerns along with business partner Tom Jones. Nelms urged council to take the matter seriously and to exercise caution, reminding council of how similar policy had upended the Uptown area not too long ago.

In his true gentleman-like fashion, Nelms introduced himself and Jones by thanking the council for hearing him out:

“Hey, thanks for taking a closer look at this,” Nelms began. “It’s important. You know, we have a long history there, and a lot of you have been right here with us doing this.”

Nelms then spoke his rather wise and insightful remarks, suggesting council consider the potential negatives. Nelms told the story of how Uptown’s previous “entertainment district” wreaked havoc, violence, and crime upon the area just a few short years ago. 

We encourage readers to read Nelms' full quote in its entirety, paying mind to the decades of experience Nelms has in this exact field, specifically within the  Uptown area:

“We’re real interested in really boring down into this — and let’s see the flip-side of it, the possibilities, and the negatives to it also. You know, back in ‘92 we actually established an entertainment district — and we were able to have alcohol licensed side-by-side, and we were changing the laws a little bit … even having mixed drinks laws, I had to come and have our ordinance changed just to have mixed drinks downtown because everything had been shut down — because it went real dark … We bought our first property in ‘85, and got some momentum. In ‘92, we opened The Loft as it is now, going for 30 years except for covid. And so, during this time when the laws changed, we had a real robust night life. It took off. It started happening, and we grew — to a point. And in ‘06/’07, where it got a little bit out of hand — first one thing happened, then another … there was a lot of videos going around, a lot of negative publicity. And it came to the point where we had to shut it down and restart this engine again. We met with CSU police, Captain Ross, our police department, Uptown, and Fort Benning to try to get support on how we could maintain this and keep it safe — because it was definitely unsafe. And so we came up with a plan, and we put Jackie Long walking tall downtown. And he helped reel all this in. We had a plan of blocking streets; we had layers. And we also had MPs (Military Police) involved. We also had undercover; people didn't realize this. We had an undercover station outside. We were able to reel this back in and get it where it was manageable. We even had meetings where we talked about limiting nightclub licenses and bar licenses and just restaurant licenses — so it was a very strategic plan on how we could regain our area back and grow it back. And that shift happened with everybody pulling together. Even the bar owners. We all had to pull together — even the doormen. We would communicate with each other if there was a problem. We’d all identify the problem and not let the problem get into the rest of the place. So we were actually very effective in turning this around.  The reason why I bring that up is because now, we’re the shining star of the region. We are a family environment, and I’m so proud of it. We are the destination restaurant area that we had hoped we would be, growing everyday. And I think we’re the center of our cultural arts center — it’s where we want to come when we have people from out of town — the riverfront, it's all just a dream come true for me and I guess all of us, too. And I guess where I really want to make sure, is that this is vetted so intensely that we know that there is a security plan. What is the game plan? What’s going to be different (than it was in 2006)? Because I don't want to do one thing to back-up into the old days. I don't want to do one thing to tarnish our families that we have coming downtown — and the negative aura that we’ve had about our area: we’ve spent so much time, energy, and marketing to overcome that. So I’d just really appreciate y’all really looking at this in a deep way to understand the impact on the other side of it too. I am not a proponent for this ordinance, how it's written and how it's laid out.  I’ve read through it (repeats), I’ve read through it, I’ve looked at like two or three different maps — it’s a constant(ly) changing (plan). I don’t believe our citizens or our property owners — the people that pay the BID (Business Improvement District) Tax that we tax ourselves to have it cleaner and safer — I’m not sure the people that pay the tax are actually understanding this ordinance on-the-books. I think it’d be real prudent of us to make sure that those people have that contact and that letter to know that their property values can be affected by this. There was a very bad incident that happened in Mobile, Alabama, that absolutely shut the downtown down; completely went ‘tank.’ And I don't know if it’s even recovered to today. So those property values went, bottomed-out, and everybody ran for the hills. And when I first bought my property back in downtown, I couldn’t even get a financing for my building (because of the location). I had to pay cash for our building. There was no bank that would finance me to open (because of the location). Now, (our businesses) are the most vibrant tax center of all of Columbus. And we pull more building permits than all of Columbus. We have more incentive than all of Columbus. What’s wrong? We are on the course that we need to be. I just don’t want to take a chance on getting off-course again and going back to where we had to work our way through a couple of times now. I appreciate y’all really looking at this and finding a plan around it that works.”

Other residents then built off Nelms' remarks, agreeing with his sentiments. One resident voiced her opinions:

“I went to the two o’clock meeting last week, I’ve been here tonight, and I watched the video of the last meeting. The problem I have at this point is that it’s not clear what you’re even voting on. I think that this is half-baked. Every meeting I’ve been too, the scope has changed; it’s done it again tonight. To me, you can’t assume that ‘one size fits all’ works in an entertainment district. I mean, Highside Market is very different than Uptown … and, you know, the Pedal Pub — this ‘tour service vehicle’ operator — having that as a licensed entity/operator is one thing, and the ‘entertainment district’ is another thing. Once you establish an entertainment district, (you have to) have a process for determining and voting on which ones are appropriate, instead of lumping it all together. It seems inappropriate and irresponsible to me. To the questions I heard at the two o’clock meeting last week, many times the answers were ‘we don’t know.’ The district (boundaries) itself were evolving, we have no idea about the ‘cups’ situation. So if that's not clear, how do you know how it will be enforced?  Or what issues will it create in order to ensure enforcement properly? To me, before you can decide what Uptown districting looks like, you need to determine what Uptown — as an entity — is going to determine is the process for obtaining and what the cups will look like. I just feel like, I think Buddy (Nelms) was right. You need to engage stakeholders for each different part, separately, and slow this down a little bit. I don’t know why everything is being lumped together in one big vote instead of separately. There just seems to be a lot of open questions to me that I am not hearing answers to, and I don’t know how you could vote without those answers. Thank you.”

Frank Lumpkin, an owner of various properties in downtown Columbus, also agreed with Nelms' sentiments. Lumpkin, who is in favor of putting Pedal Pub in business, still agrees that the council’s plans for an entertainment district are way out of line in their current state:

“I have looked at this idea — and I think the pedal pub is a great, great idea — but y’all are trying to do too much. As my daddy said, ‘it’s too much sugar for a nickel.’ You need to get him in business, and then you need to come back and mess with this. This is too much … I just think you got a little more thinking to do before you just rubber-stamp this thing.”

Contrary to Buddy Nelms' three decades of well-earned wisdom on the exact matter at hand, younger and more inexperienced business owners seem to only see the potential upsides; they do not care to heed the wisdom and experience of a man who built an empire over thirty years.

Chad Skrimpshire, co-owner of Nonic, Maltitude, and Jarfly, then delivered his opinion to city council while wearing a baggy t-shirt and a baseball cap — presumably worn to keep the water from running wet behind his ears:

“I am strongly in favor of the entertainment district. We’ve tabled this for a little over four years now, and, um, we’ve talked to people in other communities. I’ve gone and worked in Savannah and dealt first-hand with guests, getting to-go drinks, and as Walker said, um — Councilman Garrett, sorry — ahh, umm, it did seem to limit reckless drinking, you know. I did see first-hand people just pour the drink they had in their cup and just walk out, and said ‘slammin’ that one,’ and trying to get out and catch the Uber. Um, you know, this operates without a hitch in Opelika in their downtown area, and they don’t see any issues. Um, it’s currently going on in Phenix City without any issues. In Mobile, it might not have been a success — uh, but it’s a singular instance and its the only one we can find on-record where this didn’t work. We have way more evidence to support that this would be a positive change for Uptown Columbus than we do that it would be the opposite. Um, so I just think, um, that we should do this, and I think the positive growth Columbus could see as a result, um, can’t go unnoticed. And I appreciate y’all’s time. Thank y’all.”

We suppose Skrimpshire and others in his camp may have missed the countless studies published by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that all show a positive correlation between policies that increase a population’s alcohol consumption and its homicide rate. 

Buddy Nelms' thirty years of Uptown experience tend to strongly agree with those studies.

Residents can voice their opinions on the poorly-planned entertainment district and how it will statistically increase the city’s homicide rate by contacting their city council members.

Facts are stubborn things — and we’ll keep publishing them, whether city officials like them or not.

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