TACOMA — The Ruston City Council narrowly voted to ban liquor sales in city limits after midnight, in addition to requiring businesses that sell alcoholic beverages to close at 1 a.m.
The move Tuesday came after months of debate and opposition from business owners, who said the ordinance wouldn’t solve issues of public intoxication and drunk driving and would harm their livelihoods. Council members said they had received complaints from neighbors about noisy bar patrons, in addition to damage to personal property and fighting, and saw the liquor ban as a possible solution.
More than 50 people crowded the Mary Joyce Community Center on Tuesday night, prompting staff to bring in extra folding chairs. Fourteen people spoke against the ordinance during the public hearing, mostly business owners, bar staff and others who saw the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board and Ruston police as more appropriate enforcement arms to deal with the problems the city was seeing. No member of the public spoke in favor of the ordinance Tuesday.
Most of the crowd waited outside council chambers during a closed executive session that followed the public hearing until nearly 9 p.m. to hear how the council would vote.
After a few council members made comments, members Bradley Huson, Jim Hedrick and John Holland voted in favor of the liquor ban and Lynn Syler and Jenn Jensen voted in opposition. Mayor Bruce Hopkins did not vote, as the city of Ruston has a Mayor-Council form of government, which means the mayor does not vote on issues, except in the case of a tie.
Under the ordinance, all businesses in Ruston, including 24-hour convenience stores, will only be able sell liquor between 6 a.m. and midnight. In addition, Ruston businesses that sell alcohol for consumption on the premises will have to close to the public from 1 a.m. to 6 a.m. Under state law, establishments can’t sell or serve liquor between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m., but local governments can change those hours so long as the hours apply to all licensed establishments in their jurisdiction.
Unless the City Council passes an ordinance extending or amending the law, it will expire November 16, 2025. The ordinance will go into effect five days after it is officially published. No penalties are outlined in the ordinance.
Efforts to reach Ruston city officials for clarification, including the city clerk, mayor, City Council members, Ruston Police Department and the attorneys who drafted the ordinance on behalf of the city were unsuccessful.
“I don’t want to support this ordinance, but I am because I believe that the only reason the majority of you are here is because we have taken a stand to say, ‘OK, enough’s enough,’” said Holland before the roll-call vote. “You have not policed yourselves. You have not stepped up.”
Holland said he hoped the ordinance passing would prompt business owners and the public to come up with solutions to address public intoxication and other ills the city has heard complaints about.
“The only way that I can see this changing is if we all take responsibility and take measures to ensure that our patrons, when they walk out the door of their establishment, that they understand that they are in a predominantly residential town and people at midnight or after are in bed sleeping, and they deserve peace and quiet,” he said.
Council member Hedrick said he didn’t like the ordinance that sat before the council but would go on to vote in favor.
“Something does have to be done because something is happening out there and what we’ve got currently is a liquor control board that will not step up and enforce the law,” he said.
Are Ruston bars a problem?
As previously reported by The News Tribune, there are five bars in Ruston that are usually open past midnight: The Unicorn Sports Bar, Coles Bar & Grill, North End on Pearl and the Silver Cloud Hotel Tacoma at Point Ruston. The owner and employees at the 90-year-old Unicorn Sports Bar, in addition to other business owners, said they believed the Unicorn had been targeted by the city with the ordinance based on the grievances of a few neighbors.
The WA Liquor and Cannabis Board told The News Tribune last month the city of Ruston was not considered a problem area for its enforcement team and the hotel was the only establishment that had received any violations in the last two years — two for over service.
Last month The News Tribune requested all incident reports made with South Sound 911 related to public intoxication, disturbing the peace, public urination, fighting, damage to personal property, littering and driving under the influence at places like the Unicorn Sports Bar, Coles Bar & Grill, North End on Pearl and the Silver Cloud Hotel Tacoma at Point Ruston in the last year.
Those Ruston bars received a total of 25 complaints, including six related to the Unicorn Sports Bar, 13 related to the Silver Cloud Hotel, two associated with the North End on Pearl and two associated with Coles Bar & Grill.
At the meeting Tuesday night prior to the vote, City Council members and public speakers encouraged the public to document more complaints with the liquor board and Ruston police because they didn’t think the incidents that were documented are representative of the scale of the issue.
“I don’t want to vote against the residents’ complaints. They are valid complaints, and to say that there is no evidence is just not true,” said council member Jensen. “The problem is, the evidence is not on the record with 911 and not on the record with the liquor control board. But the city, the police, the council members, we’ve been hearing about this for a long time.”
Jensen went on to say she would vote against the measure because, “I think we’re doing it the wrong way, and we have got to establish a pattern, a record, and we do that through the complaints to the liquor control board. And if that doesn’t work, we revisit this next November.”
Vote came after stark opposition
Many of the residents who spoke against the ordinance Tuesday said they worked at or frequented bars in Ruston. Some called the ordinance “unfair,” “over-reaching” and “inefficient” to solve the problems at hand and said the ordinance would harm the livelihoods of bartenders, servers and local business owners. Others said there wasn’t data to support limiting liquor sales.
Council member Syler, who voted against the measure, said she was concerned the ordinance wouldn’t solve late-night problems but take a “blanket approach” that would harm businesses that aren’t doing anything wrong. Syler noted she would be open to revisiting the ordinance at a future date if no other solutions worked.
John Lane, the director of local and federal government affairs for the Washington Hospitality Association, spoke against the ordinance during the public hearing on behalf of members.
“We’re deeply concerned about the impact that this will have on businesses and [their] competitive disadvantage next to Tacoma and surrounding cities. Just think, coming up here near term, it’s going to be very challenging to schedule an event for New Year’s Eve with a midnight cut off,” he said. “And that’s just one example of other kinds of events, weddings and other kinds of celebrations and conferences, other things that will potentially have to go to other locations and will not look at facilities within Ruston.”
Lane said hospitality businesses have still not recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic and continue to operate on small margins. An ordinance like this would impact their ability to promote their business in Ruston, in addition to fiscally impacting the city’s revenues, he said.
Business owners brace for implementation
Trevor Barker, a longtime employee and son of the Unicorn Bar’s owner, told The News Tribune on Wednesday morning he wasn’t surprised to see the council vote the way it did, although he was surprised the opposition to the measure didn’t sway enough members to vote against it.
Most of the Unicorn’s customers come later in the night after other bars close, and Barker said the business has already taken steps to address noise complaints, like closing their outdoor beer garden after 10 p.m. and no longer hosting music or DJs.
Moving forward, Barker said, the business probably would try to serve customers up to the midnight cutoff and might explore bringing music back to keep patrons there longer. In the future he said residents should knock down the ordinance and put it to a ballot vote to hear a more fair indication of how many people are dissatisfied with the bars in town.
“If you’re going to make such an overreaching blanket policy, I think you should come with plenty of evidence to justify the reason for and prove that it’s effective,” he said. “I want transparency.”
Seth Colby, operations manager of Coles Bar & Grill, Hank’s Bar and Pizza, Parkway Tavern, Terry’s Office Tavern and West End Pub, told The News Tribune on Wednesday the ordinance would draw business away from Coles Bar & Grill because it’s open past midnight, but won’t ultimately impact their business as much as it will others.
“It seemed like the tone of this has been kind of established since the first meeting,” Colby said. “It’s hard not to see this as affecting some of the council members more personally and why they might have some convictions that might not match all of their constituents.”
