A proposal is on the Statesboro City Council's agenda for 5:30 p.m. Tuesday to reduce the time the city looks back for previous Alcoholic Beverage Ordinance violations from five years to three in considering suspensions of businesses' alcohol licenses.

The agenda calls for a first reading of the amendment, implying that a second reading and vote would be held later.

This follows a realization, when the council acted on police recommendations to suspend the licenses of several stores in December and of several restaurants and bars earlier this month, that the five-year lookback in the 2016 ordinance is a dramatic change from past practice. Under the previous version of the ordinance, as it had existed since December 2011, only violations occurring in the past 12 months were considered. Before that, there was a two-year lookback.

District 5 Councilman Travis Chance, one of the two current members who were on the council in 2011, says the rules adopted that year were too lenient but that there's now a perception the pendulum has swung too far in the opposite direction.

The 2011 ordinance "definitely made it a lot more of a perceived leniency versus being heavy-handed with that (the 2016) draft, and yeah, I firmly believe that if you listen to the public, council went from hands-off to being heavy-handed," Chance said. "So yes, the pendulum definitely swung from far left to far right."

Council members, he said, are trying to strike a balance and make the ordinance fair. Chance shared his views in a phone call after the Jan. 3 meeting.

Previous meeting

During that meeting, District 1 Councilman Phil Boyum said that former City Attorney Alvin Leaphart had not discussed the five-year lookback with the council. Leaphart left in December to be county attorney in Los Alamos, New Mexico.

Mayor Jan Moore objected to Boyum's comment and noted that the five-year lookback had been in drafts of the ordinance for more than a year while it was under discussion. But she also confessed a lack of attention to the length of the lookback.

"I'll sit here and say in front of everybody that I accept blame for not reading every line of that ordinance, because that's what I'm elected to do, and I'm telling you, I missed it," Moore said during the Jan. 3 meeting. "I should have probably read every single line and gone back and compared it, and in retrospect, I think five years is too long."

Moore also said that the lookback was not something business owners brought up when drafts of the ordinance were provided to the public.

Elements that were discussed at length included the allowed closing times; requirements for training for bartenders, servers and bouncers; and the way the new ordinance allowed bars as such in Statesboro for the first time, differentiating them from restaurants and limiting bars to patrons 21 and over.

"I'm sure it was presented at some point," Chance said, "because in over two years and what, four or five drafts, I'm sure it was mentioned at least one time, but as far as us having in-depth conversations ... those conversations went off on so many tangents. We would start off with a list of things we were going to accomplish. We'd get done with one."

Council members, he said, rely on the city attorney and city manager to explain proposals. The elected officials, he noted, often are very busy with their careers outside of city business, as well as with their families.

"That's no excuse, because I signed up for it," Chance said. "However, that's why I say we really look to the professionals that do this for a living to make sure we have all the appropriate information.

"I'm not saying that someone failed to give us that," he said. "But it's apparent by what the discussion was among council and the mayor that none of the six of us actually remember an in-depth, detailed conversation about five years versus 12 months."

2011 comparison

Besides Chance, the one other current member who was on the council in 2011 was John Riggs of District 4, and Chance said they have agreed they share in "the bucket of water" for what was in it. Council members asked for and received a summary at the time, only to realize later that there were other elements, Chance said.

"We truly in good faith thought that what we were given was what was going to be done, and it doesn't appear that was so," he said. "Or, what was being done was just the surface, and we didn't actually look at the devil, which is in the details."

Although there were discussions of the Dec. 6, 2011, amendment before it was adopted, for its final approval it was included as a "consent agenda" item and put to a vote along with minutes from previous meetings, some purchases and some alcohol licenses.

The new ordinance adopted by the council 10 months ago was the subject of several work sessions, some with alcoholic beverage license holders specifically invited, and was put to a separate vote March 15.

In contrast to the 2011 amendment, which formally abolished the Alcohol Control Board, the council in 2016 created an Alcohol Advisory Board to advise it of possible revisions and concerns about enforcement. Unlike the earlier control board, which had ceased meeting in 2009, the advisory board has no enforcement authority.

Recommendations for some other changes to the ordinance are also on the agenda.

Herald reporter Al Hackle may be reached at (912) 489-9458.