05052009 Regular Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Extended Bar Hours Task Force Meeting March 27, 2009 Members in Attendance: Council Member Chris Jones-Co Chair, Council Member John Thomaides, City Manager Rick Menchaca, City Attorney Michael Cosentino, Assistant City Manager Laurie Anderson, Police Chief Howard Williams, Chuck Swallow - Development Services, Kelly Franks - Main St., Scott Gregson, Allen Shy, Brian Montgomery, Sherwood Bishop, Pete Champion-TABC, Not in attendance: Jill Johnstone-MADD, Julie Eckert-Texas State University Rick Menchaca thanked Chris Jones for setting up Google website. Agenda is posted and assignments are noted on this site. Chief Williams gave an overview of number of calls generally alcohol related: MIP, DUI, loud noise calls and sexual assaults. He suggested a deeper analysis in six months and again in 12 months. Also suggested mapping the DUI and collisions for two years. At this time the arrest and collisions cluster around Hwy 123 & IH-35, Highway 80 & IH-35 and around the Texas State campus. Scott Gregson asked Chief to get number per capita. The residents of the arrested person is not known in the data. This information may be useful. If there are other issues, please let Chief know. Committee agrees information to take back to City Council is: Behavior & Behavior trends and the administration of the program. Also they would like to have data from other cities that used to have the 2:00 a.m. bar closing and then pulled back to 12 midnight. Chief Williams said that if something is not well before six months, he will immediately let City Manager Rick Menchaca know so adjustments to the issues can be made. Chief has found many other cities have not kept information on extended bar hours. It is agreed to keep this Task Force for a minimum of 12 months. Pete Champion discussed TABC data. Pete is the Area Sergeant for TABC. Hays County is one in four counties in his jurisdiction. At this time there are three agents and two other employees who cover these four counties. Pete mentioned that in the last two years there were 122 criminal cases for Age Law Violators. During the summer and December the numbers go down. Pete also mentioned that many small communities around San Marcos are no longer "Dry", which adds to increase of need for TABC. But whatever San Marcos needs TABC is here to do what needs to be done. Chris Jones asked if County Commissioners could extend bar hours to ETJ. City Attorney Michael Cosentino said that the City of San Marcos could not offer ETJ extended bar hours. Pete Champion also stated that there are no extended bar hours in Hays County and that County Commissioners must approve any request for extended hours.