(Greensburg, IN) – Greensburg City Council passed an ordinance on 2nd Reading this week that creates a Designated Outdoor Refreshment Area, or DORA.
It’s the result of a new state law that modifies Indiana’s open container law and allows people to have open containers of alcohol within a designated area. In this case, the DORA would include downtown and Rebekah and Pirate parks.
“It allows for a more open, fluid movement in a designated area to have open containers,” said Mayor Joshua Marsh. “It is really limited in what can and can’t be carried out and around and so we’re going to work with Main Street (Greensburg), which their district is mostly affected by this, in getting it implemented.”
Mayor Joshua Marsh says his goal is to have it in place in time for Tree City Fall Festival on September 15 and 16, but it will have to be sent to the State.
“They have to review it, approve it, and send it back to us. We have to get signage put up, but it is an opportunity to make that a little bit easier, make events hosted in the DORA and the downtown area so much easier to have versus all of the temporary permitting and fencing and signage requirements that go into that,” Marsh said.
He added the DORA ordinance can be modified as they go along.
“It’s not the easiest thing to adjust in the world but it can be tweaked, it can be changed. It does remain as a City Council ordinance. They have full jurisdictional control over it,” Marsh said. “We’ve structured it, in my opinion, to be as open as it can be right now. We’re going to start there and we can always make it more restrictive later.”
The vote to approve was 4-0-1 with Councilman Rick Emsweller abstaining.
Mayor Marsh was a guest on Thursday’s edition of WRBI’s The Daily Pod. You can listen to the entire interview here.
