GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — In the summer of 2020, Grand Rapids approved social districts allowing people to freely walk around certain parts of the city with alcoholic drinks.
It was introduced to help bars and restaurants during the pandemic.
Tuesday night (Dec. 14), the city commission voted to extend the seven existing social districts that would allow businesses to continue selling alcoholic drinks to-go, and customers to walk certain sidewalks with those drinks in hand.
Those districts have been in place for more than 16 months and have remained popular throughout the pandemic.
The commission says it has continued to gather feedback from businesses and patrons on the social districts and the response has been overwhelmingly positive.
"I think that's part of this process that we've gone through, the city did what they refer to as a flash vote survey, and interestingly enough, 90% of the respondents on that survey had a positive response to the social districts. 75% like the to go alcohol sales, and 81% wanted them to be continued," said Mark Miller, managing director of planning and design, Downtown Grand Rapids Inc.
City officials say the social districts have allowed businesses to add revenue. About 70 businesses downtown have embraced the program.
The city ordinance does not say when the social districts in Grand Rapids will close, but current state law does not allow them to operate past the end of 2024.
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