{"id":4708,"date":"2011-03-15T02:55:13","date_gmt":"2011-03-15T07:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/?p=4708"},"modified":"2011-03-16T01:54:58","modified_gmt":"2011-03-16T06:54:58","slug":"vw-city-council-puts-final-nail-in-beer-concession-coffin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2011\/03\/15\/vw-city-council-puts-final-nail-in-beer-concession-coffin\/","title":{"rendered":"Council puts kibosh to beer concession"},"content":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/<\/strong>independent editor<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Supporters and opponents of having a beer concession at the airport listen to discussion of the issue during Monday night's Van Wert City Council meetings. (Photos by Dave Mosier\/Van Wert independent)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With confusion on the beer concession issue growing with each meeting, Van Wert City Council made sure the issue was dead, killing it Monday night with a 4-3 vote rejecting legislation needed to provide an exception to an longstanding ordinance banning alcohol on public property.<\/p>\n

Larry Lee, executive director of the Van Wert Area Convention & Visitors Bureau and a member of the Wheels-N-Wings Committee organizing that festival, asked Council to pass pending legislation with an amendment removing the Van Wert County Regional Airport Authority from sponsorship of the festival. Lee said he hoped the amendment would then allow the airport board to authorize a beer concession at the airport during the festival.<\/p>\n

Although having Council support is critical to having a beer concession at the airport, which is city-owned property, several City Council members were reluctant to approve lifting the alcohol ban for the festival without first knowing whether the airport authority board would reciprocate.<\/p>\n

Third Ward Councilman Jon Tomlinson was one of those who voiced his reluctance to approve the pending legislation. \u201cWe were sold this idea that it was prepackaged \u2026 and that all we had to do was sign off on this, and that is not what it feels like now,\u201d Tomlinson noted. \u201cI voted for it initially, and then it just seemed like everything fell apart.\u201d<\/p>\n

Councilman At-Large Don Farmer, chair of the Judiciary and Annexation Committee that has met over the issue and another early supporter of the idea, also said he was opting out because of the confusion over the issue, although he did support an amendment proposed by First Ward Councilman John Marshall to drop the Airport Authority from festival sponsorship.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has become so confusing and so out of order that I, as a councilperson, will have to vote \u2018no,\u2019\u201d Farmer noted.<\/p>\n

Those who voted against the measure on third and final reading included Tomlinson, Farmer, Agler and Second Ward Councilman Kirby Kelly, while Marshall and Councilmen At-Large Joi Mergy and Dick Shultz voted in favor of the legislation.<\/p>\n

Shultz said he felt voting for the measure would allow the Airport Authority to see Council was in favor of having beer at the airport, adding that he felt the festival deserved a chance to go forward as originally planned, including having the beer concession at the airport.<\/p>\n

City Auditor Martha Balyeat also put in a plea to give festival organizers another chance to get work things out, noting, \u201c\u2026 there\u2019s been a lot of hard work put into this festival, not only this year but in the past several years, in changing and modifying (the festival). If you vote it down tonight, it\u2019s done for this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Council\u2019s decision, the last hope was kicked out from under the committee organizing the festival, which includes representatives of the CVB, Airport and Elks Lodge 1197. Although plans continue to have a band perform, along with a beer concession, doing so will have to be on private property or on public property not belonging to the city \u2013 and that defeats the purpose of having a unified festival at one site.<\/p>\n

Also Monday, City Council voted to prepare legislation maintaining hours for coin-operated laundries, tabled a request from the city administration for a no-parking zone on North Franklin Street until Council members can view the area in question and prepared legislation to formally name the street behind Walmart North Towne Center Boulevard.<\/p>\n

Balyeat also had good financial news for City Council, noting that the city has taken in $72,000 more than it has spent so far this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/independent editor With confusion on the beer concession issue growing with each meeting, Van Wert City Council made sure the issue was dead, killing it Monday night with a 4-3 vote rejecting legislation needed to provide an exception to an longstanding ordinance banning alcohol on public property. Larry Lee, executive director of the Van […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-13 21:19:07","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4708\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}