At the request of East Lansing Mayor Mark Meadows, an ordinance draft put forth at the Feb. 8 Planning Commission meeting would allow four bars exempt from the city’s 50/50 rule to maintain their “grandfathered” status should they relocate within the downtown area.
The 50/50 rule is an ordinance enacted in 1989 which requires businesses that sell alcohol to generate at least 50 percent of their revenue from food sales.
Businesses self-report on a quarterly basis to show they’re compliant with the rule, City Manager George Lahanas said. Lahanas said the rule was instituted to prevent downtown East Lansing from having no restaurants and only bars.
“We really don’t have bars, we have restaurants, restaurants that serve alcohol,” Lahanas said. “What we want is a place where they’re serving food and alcohol, not a place that serves only alcohol.”
The establishments currently exempt from the rule are The Peanut Barrel, P.T. O’Malley’s, Rick’s American Cafe and The Riv. These four have immunity from the regulation because they were in operation prior to its adoption and have not moved or expanded.
Meadows said none of the four would have trouble abiding by the rule as it stands, and allowing these businesses to keep their exemptions should they move will incentivize them to be open to future developments.
“As the ordinance currently sits, it prevents that from happening simply because these bars, if they move one inch, they lose their grandfathered provision,” Meadows said.
Meadows said his recommendation is not in anticipation of any specific developments, but the affected bar and grills are in prime locations the city hopes to redevelop in the future.
“Certainly we would hope that in the next couple of years the projects that we have currently pending in the downtown would result in more efforts to redevelop other parts of the downtown that these bars are actually located in,” Meadows said.
Though the Planning Commission failed to recommend approval of the ordinance by a split 3-3 vote, East Lansing City Council will have the final say on whether or not it is adopted. Lahanas said it is uncertain when the ordinance will come before council, but it will in the near future.
50/50 has often been the subject of criticism since its inception. Mayor Pro Tem Ruth Beier said she is not a fan of the rule, and she supports Meadows’ recommendation because the threat of losing grandfathered status could stifle development.
“I’m not a real fan of it, I would rather just say no to a liquor license ... we already have enough bars,” Beier said. “We’d be better off just making choices ourselves about what we want rather than having the rule.”
Lahanas said a common argument against 50/50 is it stops unique concepts from coming into market, but he said the rule encourages a diversity in services among the restaurants such as lunch hours.
“Let’s just say, for example, someone wanted to have a jazz bar in downtown, where they had jazz music live every night, and they wanted just small hors d’oeuvres and wine,” Lahanas said. “That might not be permitted under the ordinance, and maybe that would be a great idea because it diversifies and it’s focused on a different range of people, but that’s probably an example of one of the negatives to it is it doesn’t allow for a great flexibility of creative ideas.”
