LEWISTON – Councilors agreed to give big bars and nightclubs a break downtown Tuesday night.
Councilors split on a plan to allow bars of 5,000 square feet or more to be built near other bars. Councilors Stavros Mendros and Robert Connors both opposed the plan, but it still passed first reading muster 4-2.
Current zoning allows two bars to be next to each other downtown, but requires a third bar to be more than 300 feet away. The new ordinance would give bars and nightclubs with first floors bigger than 5,000 square feet a pass on that rule.
“I don’t think this does what we want,” Mendros said. The city wants to encourage higher quality bars, he said. Small dive bars can still be built downtown and big bars that could be a nuisance would now be encouraged.
“It allows the trashiest bars in almost without restriction,” Mendros said.
Mendros said he favored rules that would encourage nicer bars. City Administrator Jim Bennett said that’s what the current changes try to do.
“The logic we used is that bigger bars like this require more capital investment and will have to be nicer to be able to survive,” Bennett said.
A final vote on the matter is scheduled for April 6, and councilors are scheduled to lift a four-month moratorium on liquor licenses then as well.
The council put the moratorium on new bars in the downtown while they looked for ways to bring some class to the area. The Centreville area – which includes the Bates Mill and the Southern Gateway on Lisbon Street – has been the city’s economic development focus lately. Oxford Networks, Andover College and VIP Auto Discount Center all are moving into the gateway on Lisbon Street.
Councilors also voted to free restaurants that serve food downtown from the 300-foot rule, and Bennett said that might encourage higher quality establishments. But the city still needed some restriction on bars and nightclubs.
Councilors also voted to ban adult amusements – including pornography bookstores and shops – from the downtown. Current businesses would be allowed to stay but not expand and new stores couldn’t be built.
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