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Council narrows DORA hours and rejects amendment to bill permit holders for policing costs
Summary
Council amended the DORA ordinance to set operational days and hours and sent item 7a to third reading; members debated whether permit holders should be invoiced for police staffing and ultimately rejected a proposed amendment requiring annual invoicing of DORA permit holders for policing costs.
The Amherst City Council considered amendments to City Ordinance O‑23‑29 governing the city’s designated outdoor refreshment area (DORA). The clerk read language updating operational days and hours in accordance with Ohio Revised Code section 4301.82, and the mayor urged council to limit the change to days and times so it would not trigger a new public hearing process.
Council discussed procedure and scope: whether to treat the measure as an amendment to existing ordinance language or as a new mayoral application that would require additional notice and hearings. Several council members agreed to strip out application language and limit council’s action to changing the days and hours of the existing DORA.
A member of the public, Peggy Cinebaldi of 134 Park Avenue, spoke on behalf of local retailers and asked council to set the DORA days to Thursday–Saturday instead of Friday–Sunday, saying, “None of them are open on Sundays.” Cinebaldi also said Amherst’s DORA does not generate large revenues for retailers and warned that additional policing costs borne by permit holders could make participation unsustainable.
During council debate, one council member proposed an amendment to require the city to invoice each DORA permit holder annually for a proportionate share of the city’s actual costs for staffing two police officers; the proposed amendment set a payment due within 60 days and permitted suspension or revocation of permits for nonpayment. After discussion about equal treatment among businesses inside the DORA and concerns about possible 14th Amendment equal‑protection issues, the council voted on the invoicing amendment; the motion to add the invoicing requirement failed on a roll call vote recorded in the transcript as 2 to 5.
Council then voted to send item 7a, as amended on days and hours, to the third reading. The transcript shows council took roll calls and recorded the motion to advance the ordinance to third reading. The council directed the administration to continue refining the ordinance language to ensure it reflects only the change to operational days and hours and to allow administrative health‑and‑safety controls to be handled by the mayor’s office.
The transcript does not show final, enacted DORA hours or the final wording that will appear on third reading; those details are to be finalized before the next action.
