Residents press Hampton council on data centers, camera privacy and late-night bar impacts

Residents at the July 10 Hampton City Council meeting used the public comment period to press city leaders on two recurring concerns: how the city will approach data centers and the neighborhood impacts of a commercial night venue identified as Farrow’s Hookah & Bar on East Pembroke Avenue.

Several speakers, including Joe Skelly and Aaron Weaver, raised questions about resource and privacy impacts of data centers. Skelly said medium-sized data centers can consume “about 300,000 to 500,000 gallons of water per day” and that large facilities can use “up to 5,000,000 gallons daily,” warning that such uses could strain local water and power systems and shift costs to residents. Aaron Weaver urged greater transparency on public‑safety technology tied to the city’s real-time information center (cameras, license-plate readers, drones, gunshot detection), asking who can access data, how long it is retained, how searches are audited and how costs will be reported.

"Residents should know the cost. Residents should know how long this data is kept, how we can search it, who audits it," Aaron Weaver said during his remarks.

On neighborhood impacts, multiple speakers (Denise Wells, Lara Culliford, Teresa Craig) described late-night noise, overflow parking on private driveways, public urination, fighting and in one report the brandishing of weapons near the East Pembroke location. Speakers said the business sometimes remains open past midnight, creating disturbances for residents and raising safety concerns for children and older residents.

The City Manager responded at the meeting, summarizing staff actions and planned next steps. He said staff have created a residential parking-permit program for affected blocks (sign installation expected next week), coordinated with the police department for enforcement, worked with property owners and a private towing company (Pops Towing) to deter off-site parking, and conducted surprise inspections with a nightclub task force and fire marshals; he reported inspections so far have not found fire-code violations. On the data-center question, the manager said the city retained the Southeastern Institute of Research (SIR) to produce a joint study with Newport News to define a data‑center zoning approach, to identify utility impacts and to learn lessons from other localities rather than simply treating data centers as an office or warehouse use.

"We are trying to get ahead of the issue so that we have a thoughtful, deliberate policy," the city manager said, adding that the study will include community outreach (roundtables/town halls) to gather resident input.

On police-technology privacy guardrails, the city manager said state law governs data retention and certain disclosure practices; he said Hampton Police Department maintains logs and periodic audits of searches and access and that information requests generally follow FOIA procedures.

Speakers asked for clearer cost estimates and more independent expert input. City staff said they will convene additional outreach and publish study findings; they reiterated the difference between large-scale commercial data centers and the smaller, operational data facilities used by government or NASA that staff do not consider equivalent.

The council took no immediate policy vote on data-center zoning at the meeting; staff said follow-up public engagement and technical guidance will be scheduled as part of the SIR study.