GBC council votes down late hour permits

By ART LAWLER

GUN BARREL CITY — The Gun Barrel City Council spent little time Tuesday evening, discussing a resolution that would extend closing hours under certain provisions, to clubs wanting to stay open on weekends until 2 a.m.

The 2 a.m. closing time would have been restricted to clubs who provide bands and other forms of entertainment for their customers. They would also have to meet strict ict parking and noise restrictions.

But the proposal had a distinctly familiar ring with most of the council members, who had gone through this same process when Billy Odom, owner of the former Gaters club on State Highway 198 and some potential partners, approached the council last year for the same thing.

An ordinance was passed after sometimes heated discussion, but the club closed a few months later.

City manager Gerry Boren then spoke to the council and pointed out problems with the resolution. It was subsequently discarded, meaning the new petitioners had to start all over last Tuesday.

The latest request was made by the owners of The Barrel, which is now located in the same building, which once housed Gaters.

The Council voted it down, 3-2, with Melvyn Hayes and Curtis Webster voting against the resolution. Marvin Pace, who said he wasn’t a drinking man and wished he could eliminate it all over the country, concluded that people are going to drink, and he’d rather see them get drunk in a restricted area than out on the streets where they could hit someone, maybe even himself.

Kevin Banghart also opposed the measure.

On the other hand, the Mayor Paul Eaton, said he had told the new owners that they would be on probation the first six months they were open. If there were problems, he told them the council probably wouldn’t consider a new resolution.

“Well, they’ve done their part, and I think we need to be honest people and do what we said we’d do,” Eaton said.

But Banghart said he knew nothing about any such agreement and voted against the resolution.

Ryan, the manager at the Barrel told the council that staying open until 2 a.m . would attract major entertainers to the area and enable the club to stay open financially. He also said he wanted to “sober people up” before putting them on the highways.

So and So had already spoken out against the proposed ordinance during the speaker’s forum portion of the meeting. He didn’t like the sound of “sobering people up,” and expressed the thought that such drinking areas lead people to act in ways not best for the community.

Banghart, after listening to how the late hours would enable the club to stay in business, told Ryan. “So this is a way to make money, too. It started out as an altruistic effort as a safety issue.

Some of the council members said they weren’t drinking people themselves, but that people were going to drink, anyway, and they were concerned about intoxicated citizens out on the highways and crossing the bridges late at night.

In other action taken. The city council voted;

• unanimously to approve interlocal mutual aid agreements between Gun Barrel City Fire Department and fire departments in Payne Springs, Seven Points and Enchanted Oaks;

• unanimously to approve the appointment of Steve Webster to Place 1; Sandy Janow to Place 5 and Larry Spiegel to Place 7 on the Economic Development Corporation Board of Directors with terms to expire Sept. 2011;

• unanimously approved the 2009-2010 fiscal year budget.