Local bar and restaurant owners will soon be invited to a town hall to discuss potential changes to the permitting process and city ordinances governing their businesses.
Odessa Planning Director Elizabeth Shaughnessy said the city is moving from a small urban setting to a more mid-range setting so she and the rest of the city’s planners are trying to prepare for it the best they can.
That means everything from creating regulations that ensure new bars and restaurants aren’t too close to churches and schools, to creating streamlined permitting processes to creating uniform safety standards.
Strategic Development and Policy Manager Jeff Fisher said staff has been visiting local bars and restaurants and establishments in Abilene, Lubbock, Amarillo, San Angelo and Midland since last November.
“Staff was tasked with looking into some design standards and security and safety in all of Odessa so it would apply across the city, and really we were looking at the overall good for the city. What’s going to bring businesses downtown? What’s going to attract economic growth? What’s going to make people feel safe and secure at night when they go to a bar or a restaurant, any place that sells alcohol for on site consumption,” Fisher said.
What they discovered is that most bars and restaurants are well lit, have security cameras and security personnel on hand, but staff would like the city council to consider giving those who aren’t as safety conscious or new business owners an incentive to participate in the Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design program, which requires things like good lighting, cameras and security, Fisher said.
If they did so, perhaps they could get a break on certain permitting fees, Fisher said.
In addition, staff would like the council to think about issuing notices of violation or suspending business licenses for 60 days for minor infractions or suspending them for up to 120 days for such things as shootings or stabbing, Fisher told the council during a recent council workshop.
The council might also consider requiring bars and restaurants to hide their garbage dumpsters, keep their sidewalks free and clear and their windows transparent, Fisher said.
When visiting the other cities, Fisher said they looked at their permitting processes and ordinances and discovered a wide variety.
“One of the cities, basically in East Texas, actually regulated the number of bars per district or per square mile. We thought that was probably a little overzealous, because then you’re essentially telling people you can’t have a bar at all, and we didn’t want to go that far,” Fisher said.
Some cities require business owners to obtain specific use permits by going through a long process with planning and zoning and the city council when they start out and then every two years. Others shave off time by simply requiring them to go to staff for a site plan review.
Right now, Fisher told the council, once a bar or restaurant gets the necessary permits, which are good for two years, “there’s really no enforcement, and there’s no site plan criteria or safety standards that are really in place in between that time, so this is sometimes how certain things may happen. We want to try to prevent that.”
The whole goal is to try to make the process easier, while ensuring design standards and safety standards are being met, he said.
In the next couple of months, Fisher said staff will discuss their ideas with planning and zoning and schedule a town hall. Once they have more input from local business owners, they’ll again go to planning and zoning before taking their proposals to the city council.
He doesn’t believe the suggestions made by staff thus far are too onerous.
“These are not things that are intended to be overzealous or over regulatory. They’re just common sense kind of standards, and they would be things that would fit into a, I guess you could say, a mid-sized West Texas climate like Odessa,” Fisher said. “They’re not something to be overreaching, but also to do nothing would probably not be best practice. So we’re hoping (to find) middle ground and engaging with the public at the town hall will help us get more information.”
New standards definitely need to be in place as Odessa grows, Fisher said.
“Our growth has been astronomical. We’re getting a lot of the spillover traffic from Midland and other cities that are coming here to work in the oil field and so I think having sort of these standards now, as we continue to grow, will make it better for bars and restaurants,” he said.
He again stress staff wants businesses to succeed, but at the same time ensure they are aesthetically pleasing and safe.
