Council Meeting of July 15: The not-much-happens short council meeting.

At one hour long, this is a short council meeting. Normally announcements are made prior to the Council being called to order and announcements are recorded as a separate video. This time, announcements and the Council meeting are combined in one video. The actual business of the Council starts as time stamp 7:07. Not much happens at this council meeting so unless you just love watching council meetings you can skip it.

To view the agenda, the staff analysis and my comments follow this link.

Surprisingly there is opposition to allowing an establishment to have a beer permit that already has a liquor permit. This is rare. Most of the opposition is concern about parking. The resolution is deferred two meetings.

BILL NO. BL2014-772 on third reading adds new regulations for Construction and Demolition  land fields. The regulations seem reasonable and will provide some protection for residence living near one of these facilities. A modified version of the bill passes.

BILL NO. BL2014-776  on third reading is the bill to create the Music City Cultural Heritage Overlay District to protect our honky tonks. It would require all businesses on lower Broadway, 2nd Ave and Printers Alley to have live music or sale merchandise reflective of Nashville culture- think boots, cowboy hats, tee shirts, and tacky souvenirs. It would also ban chain establishments. This was spurred by the threat of Walgreens to open a store on Lower Broad. The buildings are already protected and this would apply to use. I love lower Broad and the honky tonks, but this is just too restrictive. People may want a nice meal without live music after visiting the honky tonks all day and night. If this was already in place we would not have the Hard Rock Café. If this was in place, we would not have the ice cream store on lower Broad. We would not have the Merchants Hotel restaurant.  We once had a Planet Hollywood on Lower Broad and while I did not particularly like it, it was better than an empty building. Do we want to stop House of Blues from opening in Nashville, if they wanted to do so?

While I would not want to see it on Lower Broad, a sports memorabilia store, an art gallery, or a good antique store, or a candy store on Second Ave, may provide a better experience for tourist.  This is just too restrictive. If I were in the Council, I would have to vote against it.  This has been disapproved by the Planning Commission and it will take 27 votes to pass. The bill is substituted and again deferred for two meetings and rereferred to the Planning Commission. For the discussion and explanation see time stamp 37:35.

Below is the Tennessean's report on this Council meeting:
Downtown business bill changes, but opposition remains

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