CIRCLEVILLE –
The Circleville City Council has informed citizens via a paper notice that the City of Circleville is considering the creation of a “Revitalization District” for downtown Circleville to improve the economy of downtown Circleville. Involving approximately 150 acres of property in and around the downtown area, the plan would focus on allowing new alcohol licenses to be permitted in a town that has heavy restrictions on new license available in the city.
Filed in July by Paul Johnson and Richard Rhodes, the Revitalization District plan is a newly-created segment of the Ohio Revised Code that “includes a combination of entertainment, retail, educational, sporting, social, and cultural or arts establishments within a close proximity to hotels, retail, restaurants and other commercial enterprises”. Created in 2008, its goal is to assist in the re-development of municipalities with populations of less than 100,000 people. The law allows for additional D5-class liquor licenses, which allow liquor sales as late as 2:30am on a daily basis. The law would allow the creation of 15 additional liquor permits within the Revitalization District, but restricts them to restaurants that will generate 75% of incomes by other, non-alcoholic means such as food.
Below: planned area of the revitalization district
In order to move forward with the plan, the city council must vote on the plan within 75 days of the filing date, which was July 10th. As per the information in the submission, this would put the majority-vote requirement on or before September 23rd of 2018.
Currently, 12 alcohol permits are issued to businesses in Circleville, but two were or are held by John Rankin, owner of Tootle’s Pumpkin in and formerly Tuscan Table. With two permits in legal jeopardy, it may be a point of contention involving transference of licenses, with the creation of additional license being useful.
