South Side ordinance illegal, (Philadelphia, Pittsburgh: neighborhoods, college, tax)

[pman]

interesting, we'll see if it holds up. I'm not a big fan of these kinds of ordinances anyway.
South Side businesses rush to get liquor licenses - Pittsburgh Business Times:

[nuwaver88]

Originally Posted by pman

interesting, we'll see if it holds up. I'm not a big fan of these kinds of ordinances anyway.
South Side businesses rush to get liquor licenses - Pittsburgh Business Times:

Thanks for sharing that pman. This ordinance was wrongheaded. The South Side is Pittsburgh's premier entertainment district. Like I have said before, preventing a few entrepreneurs willing to dump serious money into a business is not going to prevent some meathead fratboy from Pitt from getting drunk and urinating on Mrs. Johnson's stoop. The problem already exists. It needs to be addressed. Meanwhile, several places sat vacant waiting for this to happen. This is good news. Pittsburgh cannot afford to be anti-business. It was a feel good story for some politician catering to his constituents who he assumed were mostly senior citizens. We need to appease our seniors for sure. Politicians also need to appease the younger demographic if it wants to retain the thousands of college students who get their degree here and leave.

[BrianTH]

We are likely to see more of these conflicts as the core parts of Pittsburgh simultaneously attract both young bohemian-types and older people looking for walkable, culture-rich retirement venues (for example, that is what surveys say the market for Downtown housing has been made up of). We'll have to figure out a reasonable balance, and it may well be the case that concentrating our more raucous activities in certain neighborhoods is the best approach.

[hempfield mania]

And if you read today's Post Gazette, one of the city councilman is reintroducing legislation that bans all new restaurants from the South Side flats, whether they serve alcohol or not. Talk about stifling development and your tax base. Idiot...

[fleetiebelle]

There has to be a better way to keep the South Side from turning into the state's largest outdoor urinal.

[pman]

Originally Posted by hempfield mania

And if you read today's Post Gazette, one of the city councilman is reintroducing legislation that bans all new restaurants from the South Side flats, whether they serve alcohol or not. Talk about stifling development and your tax base. Idiot...

they did something very similar in Manayunk in the 90's, the restaurants supported it thinking they were going to have the strip to themselves, instead the scene moved to another area of the city where new places opened. Manayunk didn't die, but it took over ten years to regain its footing as a smaller destination.
also worth noting, Old City in Philadelphia has a similar ordinance, if Pittsbrgh's challenge holds up, it will undermine that one as well. It is definitely wrongheaded, neither city should be kicking businesses out. there are things the city could do to make it easier to coexist (public restrooms? better late night PAT/cab service?). Of course, if I'm downtown, I probably support this ban, as it increases the chances that people will begin looking for new places to invest.

Also this morning in council, Pittsburgh City Councilman Bruce Kraus reintroduced a bill to limit bars on the South Side, after a similar bill was rejected last month by an Allegheny County Common Pleas Court judge.
Mr. Kraus said the new version of the bill would change city zoning rules to prohibit all new restaurants in the Carson Street corridor, whether or not they offered alcohol. According to the city Law Department, he said, if the bill is "alcohol-neutral, it will be held up by the courts."
The councilman has long fought the proliferation of bars in the South Side Flats and said the need for limiting them was underlined this weekend when police charged a city firefighter with drunkenness and assault for an early-morning altercation with a resident of Franklin Court, off South 16th Street. The incident reportedly started when someone in the firefighter's group urinated in the resident's yard.
"If the charges are indeed true, we've really crossed the line in the South Side, and we simply have to get a handle on what's happening there," Mr. Kraus said at council's meeting this morning.
The ordinance will be forwarded to the city Planning Commission before coming back to council for debate

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10012/1027622-100.stm#ixzz0cQsFWvTL