Sylva OKs outdoor alcohol sales
This year’s Crawfish Boil at Greening Up The Mountains will offer local brews to wash down the shellfish following a vote last week to start allowing alcohol at some special events in Sylva.
The revised ordinance allows the town board to OK alcohol consumption or sale on a case-by-case basis. After a public hearing in which each of the four people who spoke expressed support of the proposal, town commissioners voted 4 to 1 to pass it, with Commissioner Harold Hensley as the sole nay vote.
“We are delighted,” said Sheryl Rudd, co-owner of Heinzelmannchen Brewery. “It just adds a whole new level (to beer tourism) to be able to have outdoor events. There’s just endless opportunities that we can do down there at Bridge Park or at other places in town.”
She expressed the same enthusiasm during her comments to the town board at the April 7 hearing, assuring them that Heinzelmannchen — as well as the two other breweries in town — would respect town residents’ varying beliefs about alcohol and that preventing overserving and underage drinking is “something we take very seriously.”
Allowing the alcohol permits would only do good things for the town, the speakers said.
“I grew up in church and I still attend church, and I do not personally see that there is any moral problem with being able to have permitted alcohol at events at the Bridge Park,” said Curt Collins, a self-proclaimed patronizer of all three breweries in town. “I don’t personally believe it will damage the family environment that exists (at town events).”
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Bernadette Peters, who owns City Lights Café and Evolution Wine Kitchen, spoke on “the profile of a craft beer drinker,” describing for commissioners a group of people who enjoy beer for its craft and taste, tend to be physically active and care about the community.
“I’ve never seen a craft beer bottle on the side of the road in Sylva, but I have counted 138 bottles of Budweiser on a one-mile stretch of Cope Creek Road,” Peters said.
John Duncan, owner of The Sneak E Squirrel Brewery, told commissioners that having the ordinance in place would be a boost to tourism, catering to the beer tourists already flocking to Asheville and sending a message that they are welcome in Sylva.
“We have tremendous potential in this area because we sit on the hub of the location people take from Atlanta to go to Asheville to engage in beer tourism,” Duncan said. “We have tremendous opportunity to borrow a little bit of that.”
In the week leading up to the vote, the majority of commissioners had made it clear that they favored the ordinance, wanting to do anything they could on their end to boost tourism and agreeing with the speakers’ assessment that the craft beer crowd is a community-minded sort.
But that doesn’t mean everybody’s on board.
“I just think that these outdoor events should be family events and — I don’t know — when I grew up the family wasn’t getting out and drinking beer together,” Hensley said.
While Hensley was the only one there last week vocalizing that point of view, there are others in the community who feel the same way, said Commissioner Barbara Hamilton, and the town board should be sensitive to that.
“We represent all of our citizens,” Hamilton said. “I agree that people should be able to drink alcohol. I’m friends with a lot of the people here that have breweries. I want to support them, but … I think we take small baby steps. You apply and we decide if it’s going to be appropriate for that particular concert or whatever is going on.”
Rudd said she “totally respects” that perspective and sees the revised ordinance as the perfect baby step.
“I think that is a great way to do it is the way we’re doing it,” she said. “We have to go in front of the commissioners every time we want to do an event. It takes some planning.”
Waynesville has a similar policy, with public consumption of alcohol banned as a matter of course but one-time permits available for special events.
For his part, Hensley’s position is that he’s said his piece and the other board members have said theirs. Going forward, he just wants to see whatever policies are adopted spell success for the town.
“I guess it is a change in times,” he said of the new policy. “I’m satisfied with it. I just hope it goes as well as they say it’s going to go.”
It won’t take long to find out. As soon as the vote concluded, commissioners moved on to the next item on the agenda — an alcohol permit request for Greening Up The Mountains, an annual festival this year scheduled for April 23. It came from Rudd, who had submitted it on behalf of Heinzelmannchen, Sneak E Squirrel and Innovation Brewing to serve beer at the crawfish boil Eric’s Fresh Fish Market is planning during the festival.
The boil would take place on Mill Street from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., spreading from the 10-minute parking sign to the old Cope’s building.
The vote on that request came down the same way as the vote on the ordinance itself — 4 to 1, with Hensley opposed.
