Law change permits drinking and dancing
Patrons who visit places where beer is sold and music is playing won’t be restricted to wiggling in their chairs or bobbing their heads to the beat after McMinnville city officials changed an old law that prohibited dancing and drinking in the same establishment.
Officials passed a new law lifting those restrictions Monday at the Mayor and Board of Aldermen meeting. Leaders said the change came about last spring after they modified an old law to allow drinking and shooting pool at the same establishment.
The law change now permits businesses inside McMinnville city limits to allow drinking and dancing. At The Barn Loft, where owners had difficulty gaining a beer permit due to beer regulations, the manager was encouraged by the news.
“There’s been a few times when someone got up and sang a country song and someone wanted to do a little two stepping,” manager Bernadette Doud said of karaoke nights on Wednesdays and Fridays. “This would allow them to. We wouldn’t have to stop the music and tell them to sit.”
Doud said managers took the old law so seriously, they feared the establishment would be shut down. Initially, patrons had to be told two or three times a night not to dance and managers had to inform them about the city restrictions.
Doud said although The Barn Loft will be maintained as a family restaurant and sports bar through the week, dancing may be offered on the weekends. Owners were thinking about offering live music on the weekends before the change and are more encouraged by the fact people will now be able to dance.
“I think it will keep a lot of business in town instead of people going to Manchester, Cookeville, Murfreesboro or Nashville on the weekends. A lot of people hang out here on the weekends for awhile, but then go out of town where they can dance,” Doud said.
The city’s decision to allow shooting pool and dancing where beer is sold is a stark contrast to how the law stood just over a year ago when neither were permitted.
According to the original beer ordinance that dates to 1986, it is implied that no sale, distribution or consumption of beer, called “such beverages” in the ordinance, will be made at places where pool or billiards are played or any place where dancing is allowed. Late last spring, city officials adopted a new ordinance that deleted the reference to pool halls, but still prohibited dancing and drinking at the same place.
Monday, city officials went a step further and amended the law again. The current ordinance states that section of the law, entitled “Sale, Distribution and Consumption in Dance and Pool Halls” of the city code is repealed and deleted in its entirety.