Manteo moving quickly to create ‘social district’

By Mark Jurkowitz | Outer Banks Voice on March 22, 2023

The B-1 Village Business District (in blue) would likely correspond very closely to a newly created “social district.”

Plan could be in place by April 7 First Friday event

With the April 7 First Friday event as a target date, Manteo officials are moving quickly toward the establishment of a downtown “social district” where alcoholic beverages in designated containers are permitted on the street.

During a March 15 workshop meeting of the Manteo Board of Commissioners, Town Manager Melissa Dickerson provided a presentation that outlined a series of next steps needed in the coming days in order to create the district.

Those steps include town staff talking to the merchants within the proposed social district to gauge their interest in the idea. Town Attorney Ben Gallop would draft an ordinance to create the social district. That ordinance could be ready to be considered by the town commissioners at their April 5 meeting. If it passes, that would be filed on April 6 with the North Carolina ABC with the town distributing “required materials” to merchants inside the new district on April 6 and 7.

During her presentation, Dickerson noted that on March 9, the town’s Mainstreet Advisory Board recommended a social district using the existing boundary of the B-1 Village Business District.

In an email to the Voice, Dickerson confirmed that the district “will be very similar to the B-1 Village Business,” but added that “We expect that Festival Park will need to be excluded since that is state property and they already have a way of managing alcohol sales during events.”

Pointing out that more than 30 North Carolina communities have created such social districts, Dickerson added that the dominant view is that “social districts are considered another tool in the toolkit that enhance downtowns.”

The March 15 commissioners meeting took place just one month after Garret Cameron, the owner of the NouVines wine bar gave a presentation to the Manteo Commissioners advocating for the creation of a social district and putting the idea on the front burner.

“Virtually every district reports an increase in both taxes and merchant revenue,” he said at the time, touting the economic benefits of such a district.

As Dickerson and others have pointed out, Manteo does have an ordinance that allows the consumption of alcoholic beverages on the street if they are inside a cup. But state law has superseded that regulation and “the ordinance has not kept up the with law,” she noted at the March 15 meeting. “In order to do what we do now, we need to adopt a social district.”

Go to comments