Although Common Council unanimously voted Tuesday to extend the Alcohol License Density Ordinance by two years, changes were also made to the controversial ordinance to allow more entertainment businesses and venues to open up downtown.
ALDO was originally passed to limit alcohol related crime by reducing the number of taverns and venues selling alcohol in the downtown area. However, according to Ald. Scott Resnick, District 8, for the number of years ALDO has been in place, it has not curbed overconsumption.
Instead, ""the ordinance has stifled new businesses and unique entertainment concepts from even considering downtown Madison,"" Alcohol Policy Coordinator Mark Woulf said.
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 overconsumption.
""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 overconsumption,"" Woulf said.
According to the Wisconsin State Journal, Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4, said he hopes the city will do what hasn't been done in the last four years and study the efficacy of the ordinance.
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.
According to Resnick, this change allows for a variety of entertainment businesses, such as comedy clubs and live music venues, to be lucrative downtown, rather than just vertical drinking spaces.
Another change made to the ordinance permits bars to apply for higher capacity if its venue opens up new space. He said this offers incentive for ""bar owners to comply and be good neighbors,"" Resnick said.
Resnick said he would like to see a more comprehensive plan that attacks the root of the issue, which he said is bad operators.
""[The ALDO compromise] should be viewed as a great victory,"" Resnick said. ""This is something District 8 alders have been reaching towards for the last four years.""
