More entertainment businesses and venues will be allowed to open downtown as a result of changes made by the Madison Common Council to the Alcohol License and Density Ordinance.
The council also extended ALDO by two years.
ALDO was originally passed to limit alcohol-related crime by reducing the number of taverns and venues selling alcohol in the downtown area. According to Ald. Scott Resnick, District 8, for the number of years ALDO has been in place, it has not curbed over-consumption.
Instead, ""the ordinance has stifled new businesses and unique entertainment concepts from even considering downtown Madison,"" Alcohol Policy Coordinator Mark Woulf said.
According to Resnick, the changes made to ALDO allow for a variety of entertainment businesses, such as comedy clubs and live music venues, to be lucrative downtown, rather than just drinking spaces.
A new entertainment license distribution, which will allow seven establishments downtown to have a 70 to 30 alcohol to other sales ratio, was one of the major changes made to the ordinance, Resnick said.
Another change made to ALDO permits bars to apply for higher capacity if its venue opens up new space.
Resnick said this offers incentive for ""bar owners to comply and be good neighbors.""
Resnick said he would like to see a more comprehensive plan that attacks the root of the issue, which he said is bad operators.
According to Woulf, the two-year extension of ALDO will allow city alders and committees to sit down and determine a longer-term alcohol license and business redevelopment plan that will more successfully solve the city's problems of crime and over-consumption.
""It allows us to have the mechanisms and the staff power to research policies to attract businesses we want to see in the downtown, but still be mindful of our larger issue of over-consumption,"" Woulf said.
