Siloam Springs City Council To Consider Public Drinking District

Alcohol, Public Drinking,

City Board members in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, will consider an ordinance permitting public drinking in the city’s downtown area at their next meeting, according to news reports.

Act 812 of 2019 by Sen. Trent Garner (R – El Dorado) and Rep. Sonia Barker (R – Smackover) lets cities create “entertainment districts” where alcohol can be carried and consumed publicly on streets and sidewalks.

These districts can be permanent or temporary, under Act 812.

City officials in Siloam Springs discussed a public drinking ordinance extensively at their May 5 meeting.

The most recent draft of the ordinance would permit public drinking throughout much of downtown Siloam Springs.

City officials have indicated that the ordinance would make it easier for bars and restaurants to offer seating areas outdoors during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the ordinance itself actually is much more open-ended than that.

Under the ordinance, people would be able to purchase alcohol to-go in bars or restaurants, and then carry and consume alcohol on sidewalks downtown.

Public drinking would be allowed from 5:00 PM – 9:00 PM, Thursday – Saturday.

Under the current draft of the ordinance, the public drinking district would be temporary and would expire no later than September 26 unless extended by the city board.

As we have said time and again, public drinking is a scourge on the community.

It raises serious concerns about drunk driving and public safety.

Public drinking doesn’t attract new businesses or bolster the economy.

It hurts neighborhoods and families.

That’s why Family Council has put together a free toolkit to help citizens oppose these public drinking districts.

Our toolkit contains talking points, information about problems public drinking has caused in other states, photographs of public drinking districts elsewhere around the country, and other resources you can use to fight public drinking in your community.

Click here to download our free toolkit.

Photo: Brandonrush / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)

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Here’s The One Thing the Arkansas Lottery Can Do to Increase Scholarship Funding by Millions

Arkansas Lottery

For more than a decade we have written about how the Arkansas Lottery fails to make college scholarship funding a priority.

The Arkansas Lottery has one of the highest prize budgets of any state lottery in America.

At the same time, it budgets far less for education than the typical state lottery does — and far less than it is capable of budgeting.

So far this fiscal year, the Arkansas Lottery is spending about 16% of its revenue on college scholarships and about 70% of its revenue on prizes.

That means if the Arkansas Lottery takes in $450 million this fiscal year, its scholarship and prize budget will look something like this:

Gross Revenue Scholarships Prizes
$450,000,000.00 $72,000,000.00 $315,000,000.00

The Arkansas Lottery can boost its scholarship funding by several million dollars. All it has to do is decrease its prize budget and spend that money on scholarships instead.

The typical state lottery spends closer to 60% of its gross revenue on prizes.

If the Arkansas Lottery reduced its prize budget from 70% of its revenue to 60%, it could increase its scholarship budget to 25% if its gross revenue.

If the Arkansas Lottery did that, here’s how much money it could pay to college scholarships, assuming the Lottery took in $450 million in a year:

Gross Revenue Scholarships Prizes
$450,000,000.00 $112,500,000.00 $270,000,000.00

But Lottery officials have said for years that if they cut prizes and increase scholarship funding, fewer people will buy lottery tickets, and lottery sales will drop.

That has not been the case in other states, but let’s assume that did happen in Arkansas.

Here’s what Arkansas’ scholarship funding would look like if the Lottery raised its scholarship budget to 25% of its gross revenue — even if lottery ticket sales dropped:

Gross Revenue Scholarships Prizes
$450,000,000.00 $112,500,000.00 $270,000,000.00
$400,000,000.00 $100,000,000.00 $240,000,000.00
$350,000,000.00 $87,500,000.00 $210,000,000.00
$300,000,000.00 $75,000,000.00 $180,000,000.00

By budgeting 25 cents out of every dollar for college scholarships instead of 15 – 16 cents out of every dollar, the Arkansas Lottery would be able to spend millions of dollars more on Arkansas’ students — even if lottery ticket sales plummeted by $150 million.

There is really no excuse for the Arkansas Lottery to be stingy when it comes to funding college scholarships.

All the Arkansas Lottery has to do is simply spend less on prizes and more on education — just like other states do.

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