Alcohol OK’d for food truck event

There were no objections by the Graham city council regarding an alcohol variance on the square for the 2017 Food Truck Championship. A request for a variance on ordinance 540 about possession and consuming alcoholic beverages on the city square during the event unanimously passed during last Thursday’s council meeting. “The CVB (Convention and Visitors Bureau Board) is kind of getting to the point where they know how to run this thing a little more efficiently now and they are getting their request in. I think last year we got this in under the wire so they went ahead and sent this request to be on this agenda,” City Manager Brandon Anderson said. For the past two years the topic has been a subject of debate. The previous variance had one vote against its approval and because the vote was not unanimous, public readings of the variance had to be held during three separate council meetings. Discussions of last year’s variance started in early February and ended after a month of deliberations between the city and council, but this year’s discussions have been different, Convention and Visitors Bureau Manager Jenea Knight said. “I haven’t heard anything as far as people saying anything about it this time around, so its actually been quite quiet. Usually there is some chatter, but I haven’t heard anything negative,” Knight said. Ordinance 540 was adopted Feb. 28, 1980 with the original purpose of controlling litter on the downtown square, according to an document opinion from former City Manager Larry Fields. The downtown square was the weekend gathering place for kids who would park their vehicles and sit on the square Friday and Saturday nights and would often drink alcoholic beverages and litter on the square. For the rest of this story, subscribe to our print or online edition.