From Bill King, President & CEO, Downtown Raleigh Alliance and NCDDA Large Cities Board Member.
Thank you to all who attended and we did our best to address as many questions as we could! The session opened with a great overview of the legislation from Andy Ellen of NC Retail Merchants Association. Our panelists from Mobile, Huntsville, and Grand Rapids then shared a lot of great ideas and experiences. Among the lessons learned, they discussed relatively few problems with crime and enforcement, openness to flexibility to adjust hours and boundaries as behavior evolves, various approaches to how to handle the “cups” required for these districts, ways to creatively apply signage for these districts, the need to educate businesses on rules of districts, and other ideas. There were a lot of questions answered about these districts throughout the session.
Coming out of this discussion, our downtown practitioner community still has questions on insurance liability, how these districts interact with special event footprints, responsibility of purchasing cups, signage requirements, and others. As we move forward, we will keep sending along information as we receive it and look to partner with organizations on additional webinars in near future. We encourage you all to share both information and questions as you have them.
If you would like to view the webinar or if you have any questions or comments send an email to admin@ncdda.org.