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Update! What Happened at the Public Drinking on the Streets of Waynesville June 27th City Council Vote?

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Update! What Happened at the Public Drinking on the Streets of Waynesville June 27th City Council Vote?

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Listen to the entire Town of Waynesville Public Drinking on the Street, "Social Drinkng Districts" meeting.
https://haywoodtp.net/pubII/23712-6-27- ... eeting.wav

Minutes from the Town of Waynesville Council meeting on Social Drinking Districts June 27, 2023
https://haywoodtp.net/pubII/230719-23-J ... l-FULL.pdf

Smoky Mountain News Cory Villaincourt tried to make the negative reaction about bringing Social Drinking Districts, aka public drinking on the streets of Waynesville "political", stating it was a Republican thing. The interesting fact is, it wasn't political at all. The negative reaction came from Republicans, Democrats and Unaffilated at the "standing room only" Town of Waynesville City Council meeting, where 28 speakers spoke against it. So far, there were 3 registerd Democrats, 5 Unaffilated and 12 Republicans. There were 18 different negative posts on Council member Jon Feichter's facebook page, some from known Democrats, and Jon Feichter has stated, "it was very clear the citizens of the town of Waynesville and Haywood County did not want Social Districts of any kind at any time, and he wanted to vote the will of the people", " to kill it once and for all". The Downtown Waynesville Commission's poll only touched a few people, and it was clear, based on 28 speakers and a packed house of citizens against it, they wanted no part of drinking on the streets of Waynesville. Again, we have another proven sensational article full of lies from Cory Villaincourt at Smoky Mountain News. Did you notice, the over 400 citizens that signed a survey against social drinking on the streets of Waynesville, wasn't even mentioned?

The elephant in the room is Council member Julia Freeman, who still hasn't gotten the message, citizens don't want it, and she continues to plan to vote her own will, not the will of the people. Julia Freeman, a registered Republican is good buddies with Anthony Sutton a registerd Democrat endorsed by Marxist Down Home. They sit on the Haywood Health Trust board and give money to the Socialist Helping Hands non-profit, to send vagrant addicts to low barrier shelters in Maggie Valley. Both were in favor of low barrier no rules shelters in Waynesville and plan to put Social Drinking on the streets of Waynesville, against the will of the citizens. Democrats, Unaffilated and Republicans stood together to say no to destroying their town.

Council member Chuck Dickson is quoted in the Smoky Mountain News, it was hypocritical the Republicans voted for Social Districts but the Republicans were the citizens that didn't want it in their town. Chuck is a hipocrite and liar, and a known far leftist socialist. He has stated publicly "there is no Socialist Party". He told the Smoky Mountain News, partisanship has no place in local elections who make decisions about filling potholes. Chuck Dickson was endorsed by the Marsixt Down Home and People's Action Super PAC and hired a known Marxist and Down Home member, Amy Murphy-Nugen to put low barrier shelters all over Waynesville like restaurants. He allowed a grant to be written in the Town of Waynesville, listing the Marxist Super PAC Down Home as a "Relevant Stakeholder" on the grant! Chuck Dickson has to go. He is destroying Waynesville.

Vote Julia Freeman, Anthony Sutton and Chuck Dickson, the three most dangerous Council members, off the Town of Waynesville Council, before they totally destroy the town. They are also advocates for smartgrowthamerica.org, which is why the town of Waynesville has over 1000 apartments and condos coming in the next two years.
https://smokymountainnews.com/news/item ... -tables-it


The room began to fill early, at the Tuesday 6/27/23 Town of Waynesville City Council meeting. Bright yellow cards were on the table for speakers to weigh in on Social Drinking Districts. As every seat filled and people began to stand along the back wall, magically everyone in the room realized they were of one accord. Over 150 people and 28 speakers, clapped and encouraged speakers, as one by one they came. The one hour mark passed and attorney Martha Bradley announced only one hour had been allotted for the hearing, so Julia Freeman made the motion to continue with speakers. They came from all walks of life and all political affiliations. Every single one standing against public drinking on the streets of Waynesville. It was glorious, empowering, and each speaker spoke with such confidence and conviction. Every speaker had done their research and brought up so many valid reasons against Social Drinking Districts in Waynesville, which made the reasons given to do it, that it would bring more shoppers to downtown Waynesville, seem almost bizzare. The over 400 survey's against Social Districts in Waynesville were presented by Stephanie Sutton, who is running for city council. One lone speaker for Social Districts spoke at the end of the hour and a half lecture by citizens, making case after perfect case to reject it. He sounded like a whining baby on the loosing end of getting a piece of candy, pleading for the Council to disregard every person and speaker in the room. At the end of the speakers, Mayor Gary Caldwell called for a vote, and all four Council members were silent...for more than 30 seconds, just looking down at their hands. Finally, people in the crowd asked why they weren't speaking and Mayor Caldwell said, if a motion isn't made it's killed. Then, Council member Jon Feichter started to speak and stated he wanted to get an answer tonight. Gary repeated, if members are silent it's dead. Jon began to speak again and Council member Anthony Sutton made a motion over his voice, to table it indefinitely, which was quickly seconded by Julia Freeman. Gary started to speak, and Town Attorney Martha Bradley said he had to call for a vote because a motion was on the table. Gary Caldwell, Chuck Dickson, Anthony Sutton, and Julia Freeman voted to table it indefinitely, with Gary Caldwell saying it's gone, it's dead. Jon Feichter voted no to the motion to table indefinitely. He was later quoted as saying, I wanted to make a motion to kill it.

https://wlos.com/news/local/waynesville ... -beverages

The Town of Waynesville's Council hearing for Social "Drinking" Districts will be held next Tuesday 6/27/23 at 6:00 PM, at the Town Hall Boardroom located at 9 South Main Street Waynesville, NC and encourage the Council members to Vote "NO". The meeting will begin at 6:00 PM, however, if anyone wishes to speak, please arrive 10-15 minutes early, in order to sign up. It's important that Concerned Citizens, again, show up and speak up at this hearing on Tuesday 6/27/23, to "team up" with Sheriff Wilke, Mayor Caldwell, and Rep. Mark Pless in strong opposition to the Social "Drinking" Districts in Waynesville.

The Agenda for the meeting is posted below.
https://haywoodtp.net/pubII/230621-23-J ... l-FULL.pdf

SIGN PETITION BELOW!
https://www.change.org/p/vote-no-to-pub ... andit_var=

Great article by Payton Renegar from the Mountaineer Newspaper! Thank you Payton for reporting factual information!
"Fury and Passion Ignites Over Proposed Social Drinking District in Waynesville"
https://www.themountaineer.com/news/fur ... 530d5.html

REMINDER: The Town of Waynesville's Board of Alderman's hearing for Social "Drinking" Districts will be held on 6/27/23 at 6:00 PM, at the Town Hall Boardroom located at 9 South Main Street Waynesville, NC! Please come encourage the Aldermen to Vote "NO". The meeting will begin at 6:00 PM, however, if anyone wishes to speak, please arrive 10-15 minutes early, in order to sign up. It's important that Concerned Citizens, again, show up and speak up at this hearing on Tuesday 6/27/23, to "team up" with Sheriff Wilke, Mayor Caldwell, and Rep. Mark Pless in strong opposition to the Social "Drinking" Districts in Waynesville.


** Ten Concerned Citizens (with many more in attendance) spoke in opposition to Social Districts last night at the Town of Waynesville Board Meeting, and Zero Citizens spoke in support of Social "Drinking" Districts. All ten gave excellent, well researched presentations and were further encouraged by Mayor Caldwell's public statements opposing the Social "Drinking" Districts. The Mayor also read a well crafted letter by Sheriff Wilke, who also strongly opposes the Social "Drinking" Districts. Please read Sheriff Wilke's letter below:


Dear Mayor Caldwell,

It has come to my attention that the board of Alderman is considering a social district within Waynesville that will permit the consumption of alcoholic beverages on the streets and amongst various businesses in the downtown area of Waynesville. I would heavily encourage the board to vote against such an initiative. I have years of law enforcement experience dealing with special events and designated areas in which public consumption has been permitted, and the perceived economic benefit this may bring will be far outweighed by the costs, both financial and social, to our citizens, visitors, and taxpayers. It will also have several unintended consequences that will be left to our already strained public safety resources to contend with.

Should this initiative be approved, you should expect an increase in criminal offenses, as those looking to commit crimes tend to seek the easiest of victims. Much like the experiences of Asheville during the festival days of Belle Chere and other regular events that permitted public consumption, the additional burden on public safety resources was immense and had to be significantly increased accordingly. Publicly consuming and impaired individuals make easy targets, and are more prone to a lack of awareness and restraint. While the Waynesville PD will be the lead agency to handle any increase in crime resulting from this, our Sheriff's Office will need to contend with increased pressure on detention facility resources resulting from arrests. With a jail that is almost always at operational capacity, and the additional expense to transport detainees elsewhere when at capacity, an additional burden on already stretched resources should be expected.

One often overlooked impact to open public consumption is the effect it has on those struggling with chemical dependency, particularly in the homeless population. Not only will this create an attraction for those homeless who are service resistant to sober living already in our area, but it is very likely to increase this population from places beyond our mountain communities.

Additionally, for those actively seeking sobriety, there is an added burden of being in the presence of public drinking that makes a choice for healthy living more challenging.

As a longtime resident of Haywood County, our downtown Waynesville has traditionally been known as a safe and friendly family environment. From a personal perspective, the loss of this would be a loss to our sense of community and place us on the trajectory that neighboring mountain cities once took, but ultimately contributed to the condition we now see them in.

Most Respectfully,

William "Bill" Wilke


Citizens plan to come to the Town of Waynesville Council Meeting Tuesday, June 27th at 6:00PM to oppose Social Drinking Districts in the Town of Waynesville!

Is Public Drinking on our streets a good idea or will it increase our crime and litter and decrease the safety of our children? The Town of Waynesville already has a problem with vagrants, high crime and litter. The Downtown Waynesville Commission clearly doesn't have families and children in mind when they decided to recommend public drinking on the streets of Waynesville. They said they found 100 people who say they want it, so we need more than 100 people who say it will hurt our town and what we want our town to represent. We have families with children who live in town and visit our town. No downtown residents opposed the plan, according to the Downtown Waynesville Commission? Who did they poll? Probably people drinking at a pub! Only 65 percent of the 100 surveyed wanted public drinking everyday from 10AM to 10PM.

This great article by Haywood Toeprints, explains how unreliable, skewed and misleading the survey done by the Downtown Waynesville Commission is, that showed mostily in favor of Social Drinking Districts, or public drinking on the streets of Waynesville. It looks like they deliberately swayed the survey in favor of public drinking districts.
https://haywoodtp.net/pubII/230612Socia ... urveys.pdf

Hendersonville has rejected it and only the college town of Sylva has voted it in.
https://mountainx.com/news/social-distr ... on-in-wnc/


Citizens come to the Town Council meeting Tuesday night at 6 to oppose this plan. They could opt for special events but they want public drinking every single day of the week like Sylva, which is close to the college.

Main Street is state highway 276. What happens when a drunk person gets hit by a car? Is the Town of Waynesville going to be sued because they voted "yes" to public drinking on the streets? This will be a nightmare, with people walking back and forth to the new apartment complex at the old Bi-Lo location.

https://www.themountaineer.com/news/wei ... b841d.html
https://www.themountaineer.com/news/dev ... beb95.html
https://money.yahoo.com/weighing-pros-c ... 00843.html

https://smokymountainnews.com/news/item ... l-district

Sylva forced it on the citizens of Jackson County
https://smokymountainnews.com/archives/ ... referendum

Many problems come with public drinking on the streets of Waynesville. With the Apartments opening at the old Bi-Lo site, people will be walking from Main Street back to the Apartments with drinks in hand. Other towns in NC are fighting to keep it out of their downtowns and away from their children.

https://www.carolinacoastonline.com/tid ... cb041.html

https://www.wakeforestnc.gov/news/commi ... l-district

https://abc11.com/raleigh-social-distri ... /12128985/


Will people try to walk in other restaurants that don't serve alcohol with alcoholic beverages?
https://www.randolphhub.com/article/com ... -districts

Will the Town of Waynesville be liable if a person hands over their alcoholic beverage to a minor, who then drives a car and injures themselves or another person or buys a drink for an already intoxicated person because the bar refused to sell them more?
https://www.rflaw.net/social-host-liabi ... -carolina/
Last edited by Forum Member on Fri Jul 21, 2023 9:27 pm, edited 29 times in total.
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Re: Vote NO to Public Drinking on the Streets of Waynesville June 27th! What Happened at the June 13th Council Meeting?

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** Does increased alcohol consumption in a community lead to increased crime rates? Studies say, Yes! Read, Study, and Share the links below:

https://savestcmain.com/f/alcohol-is-a- ... imes-today (Save St. Charles Main Street-Concerned Citizens fight to keep Alcohol Consumption under control) (Alcohol is a factor in 40% of all violent Crimes today)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3412911/(Association of Density of Alcohol Sales Establishments and Crime)
https://www.nllea.org/documents/Alcohol_and_Crime.pdf(Historic Study between the relationship between Alcohol and Crime)


** Letter to Rep. Mark Pless asking for his continued support for Waynesville and Haywood County Citizens, Sheriff Wilke, and Mayor Caldwell in opposition to Social "Drinking" Districts in Waynesville.

Rep. Mark Pless,

We believe crime, needle litter, homelessness, and vagrancy issues should be substantially reduced before the Town of Waynesville adds to these burdens, with Social Districts. Many concerned citizens of Waynesville and Haywood County are opposed to "Social Districts", in the Town of Waynesville, for several reasons.

One is the town's recent history of promoting the NC Harm Reduction Coalition's policies (through the Town of Waynesville's Homeless Task Force of 2020), such as low barrier shelters and distribution of needles, crack smoking kits, safer sex-work brochures, and condoms, within the town limits of Waynesville, NC.

https://www.nchrc.org/harm-reduction/crack-use/ (Crack Smoking Kits)
https://www.nchrc.org/harm-reduction/sa ... -drug-use/ (Needles with brochures detailing the best ways to inject)
https://www.nchrc.org/harm-reduction/safer-sex-work/ (Details the best ways to operate as a prostitute)

Another is the Town's statement, in their "Dogwood Trust Grant Request", that "Waynesville's approach to dealing with homeless individuals has created a destination for both regional and interstate homeless populations that far exceeds the Community's ability to house and feed them".

https://www.haywoodtp.net/pubII/220910D ... iginal.pdf

A third reason is Waynesville's crime index score of 0 (Scale is 100 to 0, with 100 the best and 0 the worst) with Neighborhood Scout. Neighborhood Scout's parent company is CoreLogic, and it's one of the largest neighborhood analytics databases in the U.S.

https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/nc/waynesville/crime

Based on these issues alone, concerned citizens of Haywood County stand with Sheriff Bill Wilke and with the Mayor of Waynesville, Gary Caldwell, against Social Districts in the Town of Waynesville. We're asking you, Representative Pless, to stand with us and encourage the Town Council of Waynesville to vote "NO" at the upcoming hearing on 6/27/23. We also ask that you do all you can to improve this situation, since we have many families, with children, who live in town, and visit our town.

The safety of our children, families, and tourists should come first. We believe Social Districts in Waynesville will have a negative impact on the character of Waynesville, and would redefine what the town of Waynesville stands for, forever.

Thank you,

Concerned Citizens of Haywood County
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Re: Vote NO to Public Drinking on the Streets of Waynesville June 27th! What Happened at the June 13th Council Meeting?

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Come to the Tuesday, June 27th Town of Waynesville Council Meeting to vote NO!
https://www.themountaineer.com/news/jur ... 7895e.html
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Re: What Happened at the Public Drinking on the Streets of Waynesville June 27th City Council Vote?

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On June 27, 2023, Concerned Citizens gathered at the Town of Waynesville City Council meeting to voice their concerns against Social Drinking Districts. It was tabled indefinitely by the City Council Members. We will wake up tomorrow morning to the beautiful downtown Waynesville we all know and love.
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Re: What Happened at the Public Drinking on the Streets of Waynesville June 27th City Council Vote?

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Smoky Mountain News Cory Villaincourt tried to make the negative reaction about bringing Social Drinking Districts, aka public drinking to the streets of Waynesville "political", stating it was a Republican thing. The interesting fact is, it wasn't political at all. The negative reaction came from Republicans, Democrats and Unaffilated at the "standing room only" Town of Waynesville City Council meeting, where 28 speakers spoke against it. There were 18 different negative posts on Council member Jon Feichter's facebook page. some from known Democrats, and Jon Feichter has stated, "it was very clear the citizens of the town of Waynesville and Haywood County did not want Social Districts of any kind at any time, and he wanted to vote the will of the people", " to kill it once and for all". The Downtown Waynesville Commission's poll only touched a few people, and it was clear, based on 28 speakers and a packed house of citizens against it, they wanted no part of drinking on the streets of Waynesville. The elephant in the room is Council member Julia Freeman, who still hasn't gotten the message, citizens don't want it, and she continues to plan to vote her own will, not the will of the people.
https://smokymountainnews.com/news/item ... -tables-it
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