For a problem that didn’t exist—not yet, anyway—Palm Coast expended great energy since last fall to decide whether to regulate bottle clubs, a form of bar where patrons bring their own booze, as in fraternal organizations. Tuesday evening, in what amounted to the ninth municipal hearing or meeting on the matter, the Palm Coast City Council voted 5-0 to ban bottle clubs outright, except in their incarnations as fraternal organizations.
The council will vote again in two weeks on the same measure, enacting it then, though in effect nothing will change: no businesses will be forced to close. They’ll simply not be allowed to open. But aside from one possible such club at City Market Place, bottle clubs were not lining up to open in the city.
That City Market Place possibility triggered a unanimous response from city businesses, many of them concentrated at City Market Place. The letters to the city echoed the same sentiments: “Knowing the type of clientele that bottle clubs typically arise from such an establishment,” one such letter went, “we definitely do not want this type of business in the City Marketplace, or anywhere in Palm Coast or the surrounding areas for that matter.”
The city council first discussed the issue in November then sent the matter for review to its administrative planning staff and its planning board, voting on a 120-day moratorium on such clubs in the meantime. The planning board recommended an outright ban. The council followed suit after yet another brief presentation from Mark Carman, commander of the Palm Coast precinct for the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office.
Sheriff’s deputies, he said, are “relieved” that the ban will be enacted, as it will keep them from being overtaxed with the sort of police responses he said are typically generated by bottle clubs. He cited Volusia County’s experience.
Linda Sparda says
Its about time some thing is done is this corupt city.
Mark says
Our liberties are in deep trouble.
“What country ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.” (Thomas Jefferson)
Let’s party!
Anonymous says
Bottle clubs will bring more crime and be a place for the rowdy ones to mingle. Nothing more than a recipe for trouble and a way to make the reputation for Palm Coast worse than it is. Without bottle clubs the crazies stay somewhat hidden.