El Dorado City Council Discusses Weekend “Rowdiness” in City’s Public Drinking District

Public Drinking

During last week’s meeting, the El Dorado City Council discussed “rowdiness” in its entertainment district downtown, according to the El Dorado New-Times.

Act 812 of 2019 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.

Act 874 of 2021 expanded the law to let cities in dry counties approve public drinking as well if the city contains a private club that serves alcohol.

This year lawmakers passed Act 34, which lets cities and towns that do not collect advertising and promotion taxes on hotels and restaurants establish entertainment districts where public drinking is legal. This has the potential to expand public drinking in Arkansas by letting communities authorize public drinking in entertainment districts even if the community does not cater toward hospitality and tourism.

Family Council strongly opposed each of these laws, because of the harm that public drinking causes to communities.

In 2019 El Dorado’s city council voted to authorize public drinking in an entertainment district covering approximately nine blocks downtown.

At the July 13 meeting, City Council Member Frank Hash reportedly noted that disorderly and unruly behavior has become a recurring problem on the weekends in parts of El Dorado’s public drinking district.

Yesterday’s El Dorado News-Times article indicates that law enforcement has faced challenges policing El Dorado’s entertainment district, and that litter and other types of disruptive behavior have been a problem associated with the area.

As we have said for years, 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, bolster the economy, or revitalize Main Street. It hurts neighborhoods and families.

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Tech Giants, ACLU Try to Block Arkansas’ Social Media Safety Act in Court

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Tech giants and the ACLU are working in court against Arkansas’ Act 689, the Social Media Safety Act of 2023.

The Social Media Safety Act is a good law by Sen. Tyler Dees (R – Siloam Springs) and Rep. Jon Eubanks (R – Paris).

It requires major social media companies to use age verification to ensure minors do not access social media platforms without parental consent.

The law contains protections for user privacy. A social media company that violated the law could be held liable.

Act 689 narrowly cleared the Arkansas Senate last spring, but received strong support in the Arkansas House of Representatives. Governor Sanders signed it into law following its passage.

On June 29 the trade association NetChoice filed a lawsuit in federal court in Arkansas on behalf of its members — which include tech giants such as Meta (owner of Facebook and Instagram), Twitter, SnapChat, Pinterest, and TikTok.

The lawsuit alleges that Arkansas’ Social Media Safety Act is unconstitutional and should be struck down.

On July 14 the ACLU of Arkansas filed a proposed amicus brief supporting NetChoice’s lawsuit and opposing Act 689.

The ACLU’s amicus brief claims,

Requiring individuals to verify their ages before using social media will impose significant burdens on the exercise of First Amendment rights online. [The Social Media Safety Act] will rob people of anonymity, deter privacy- and  security-minded users, and block some individuals from accessing the largest social media platforms at all. Additionally, imposing a parental consent requirement on access for young people will impermissibly burden their rights to access information and express themselves online, stigmatize the use of social media, and run counter to the parental authority of parents who do not object to their kids using social media.

The truth is the Social Media Safety Act respects parental authority by prohibiting social media companies from registering children as users without parental consent. Age verification and parental consent requirements for social media companies simply do not violate the First Amendment.

News reports have highlighted time and again how social media giants serve teens a steady “diet of darkness” online.

Despite employing tens of thousands of content moderators, TikTok’s algorithm repeatedly has been shown to inundate teenagers with videos about eating disorders, body image, self-harm, and suicide.

In February the American Psychological Association’s Chief Science Officer told the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee that social media use heightens the risk of negative influences among adolescents, and that young people are accessing social media sites that promote eating disorders and other harmful behavior.

Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has published an analysis determining that social media is a major cause of mental illness in girls.

And a recent CDC report found 16% of high school students were electronically bullied in 2021 through texting, Instagram, Facebook, or other social media platforms.

Social media companies are owned and operated by adults. Given how harmful social media content can be, the adults running these tech companies should not be able to let children use their platforms without parental consent. Arkansas’ Social Media Protection Act helps address this serious problem.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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