The Orlando City Council voted Monday to limit nightclub development downtown, approving an ordinance that mandates for new nightclubs to be built at least 300 feet from one another.
The decision followed a temporary six-month moratorium on nightclub development established last year to allow city staff time for zoning research, as part of a plan to improve the downtown area.
Commissioner Jim Gray of District 1 was a supporter, saying the vibrancy of downtown depends on making it safer and more diverse.
“We are never going to get high-end employers to want to move their headquarters to downtown Orlando, and create higher paying jobs, and get the hotels and the restaurants and the retail because (our) nighttime is unsafe, and we just have a bad reputation,” Gray said.
Gray said the conversation of economically improving downtown Orlando has been going on for years, but the area’s nightlife has been counteracting those gains.
“Here are the statistics from OPD in the month of June: arrests 144, fights 22, disturbances 37, firearms seize 24 — if that’s the kind of downtown we want at night, we got it,” Gray said. “We spend too much time talking about the night time economy. What we need to be talking about more is the daytime economy.”
But critics said the ordinance will impact businesses and property owners, especially existing club owners despite a grandfathering status clause in the ordinance: Existing businesses will be grandfathered in, becoming “legal non-conforming.” But this privilege still prevents them from expanding and applies only to the location, not the owner — meaning a grandfathered status cannot be transferred to another location or newer business just because it’s owned by the same person.
Commission Tony Ortiz of District 2 was the only dissenting vote, siding with business owners, saying he worried the change might do more economic harm than good.
Ortiz also said he doesn’t believe the city has exhausted all alternatives to implement other safety and security measures which could prove helpful and have been brought up before, such as installing security cameras in public parking garages, putting up signs that warn of surveillance cameras to deter crime, or widening sidewalks and roads.
“I don’t want to find our city to be empty, to become a ghost town at night. And I think there are other measures to take in terms of safety and security,” Ortiz said. “I guess, I’m not ready to accept something like this until I see some measures that we need to take.”
Other big cities across Florida have similar ordinances, including Daytona Beach, Tampa, and Miami.
The ordinance requires a second public hearing. The council scheduled it for their next regularly scheduled meeting on Aug. 12.
Lillian Hernández Caraballo is a Report for America corps member.
