The Bloomington City Council will discuss potential liquor license fee increases Monday night to offset the cost of the police department’s downtown hireback program. (Joe Ragusa/WJBC)
By Joe Ragusa
BLOOMINGTON – Extra police work in downtown Bloomington every weekend costs the city over $100,000 every year and the city council will discuss ways to recoup that cost during a work session Monday, including potential liquor license fee increases.
“Were we not down there and things were to occur, I guarantee you that it might cost more than that,” Police Chief Brendan Heffner said.
Heffner said the police department has received over 20,000 calls since 2013 and about 90 percent of those calls occur between Thursday and Saturday. Over half of the calls on the weekends are handled by officers working through the downtown hireback program.
Economic Development Coordinator Austin Grammer said a potential fee increase could be designed to have license holders pay for the entire cost of the downtown hireback program, but maybe not.
“Maybe the license holder shouldn’t be expected to pay 100 percent of the program, maybe only 50 percent of the program and the city council will find the other 50 percent somewhere else in the budget,” Grammer said.
If all 27 downtown license holders were to pay extra to recoup 100 percent of the cost, Grammer said it would increase the license fee by $4,800 a year.
“These are some very preliminary ideas and preliminary projections,” Grammer said. “We would want to, of course, meet with the local business owners, the liquor licensees, the bars and taverns and restaurants in the town to get their feedback.”
Liquor license fees haven’t changed since 1982.
Joe Ragusa can be reached at joe.ragusa@cumulus.com.
