DORA Comes to Ohio

I’m as much a fan of bi-lingual children’s television shows as the next guy, but this is not a post about the ever-popular children’s television show Dora the Explorer. This post is about an actual good piece of legislation that has finally come out of Ohio’s state legislature and it’s known as DORA. A quick rundown of what DORA is: it stands for “Designated Outdoor Refreshment Area” and it’s basically a publicly designated area where it is legal for people to drink alcohol outside, but it’s highly regulated. Since this is something that was crafted at the state level, there are other municipalities all across the state and in the Greater Cincinnati Area that also have their own DORA zones. Cheviot, Hamilton, Harrison, Lebanon, Mason and a bunch of other places around the state now have legal outdoor drinking areas. The City of Cincinnati’s DORA zone is downtown at The Banks and it’s active everyday from 11:00 AM – 1:00 AM year-round. It stretches roughly from Paul Brown Stadium all the way to the Heritage Bank Arena. It’s time to analyze DORA and look at the possible pros and cons for our city’s residents and businesses.

DORA will most likely provide a huge jolt to the businesses at The Banks that have long had a difficult time attracting customers when Reds or Bengals home games are not occurring. Pictures from the night of 3/27/21 show massive crowds at The Banks and there were reports of 30-minute lines to obtain an alcoholic beverage. For the City of Cincinnati’s DORA zone, some people complained about the lack of social distancing and seating/tables. These are kinks I assume that will surely be worked out quickly and I think providing seating and tables will only add to the atmosphere and attract more people downtown. I’m not really into shaming people at the tail end of a global pandemic for going outside to enjoy themselves, especially if they’ve been vaccinated. The lack of social distancing will become less of a concern as more people are vaccinated and we ease back into normalcy. So all-in-all, this is probably a very good thing for our city and our state.

The one thing that gives me pause about DORA is this: when you purchase your drink, it must be in a special DORA cup and that special cup allows you to legally drink outdoors in the DORA zone. These cups can only be obtained from the businesses within the DORA zone. We saw something similar at places like Washington Park when it got a massive makeover by our unelected overlords at 3CDC when they took it over. You can drink alcoholic beverages within Washington Park, but only if you purchase the beverage from a designated vendor located inside the park. Naturally, these vendors are pretty much exclusively selling the local craft beers like Rhinegeist, Madtree and Morlein. Unfortunately, if you want to bring your own adult beverage you purchased at the local corner store or grocery store into places like Washington Park or the DORA zone, you would be breaking the law. If you want to enjoy public drinking, you have to have the means to purchase one of the adult beverages from the businesses at The Banks which obviously sells alcohol at higher prices than what you’ll find at your local grocery store or corner store. It seems pretty arbitrary to say one type of public drinking is better and more legal than the other. I obviously understand the financial reasoning for this. The city wants people to spend their money at the businesses at The Banks which is fine and logical. However, I’d argue there should be less regulation around what types of drink you can and cannot drink within the DORA zone. If a person wants to go grab a Bud Light at the corner store and then head on down to The Banks to enjoy the atmosphere, then so be it. My concern is the same concern about drinking in Washington Park; people of lower income levels will be excluded from the outdoor drinking activities.

The official rules of DORA are posted downtown at The Banks.

But alas, this is a state initiative and our city elected officials wouldn’t be able to make that change regardless. We’ll have to wait and see how the police enforce the DORA cup policy. I will have major concerns if police begin arresting individuals who bring their own alcoholic drinks into the DORA zone, because I’m sure it’s going to happen. Simply designating a DORA zone should’ve been enough; regulating the type of cup used to drink said alcoholic beverage is government overreach. But you have to celebrate the small victories when they come, because our state legislature is known for pumping out very bad laws or getting absolutely nothing accomplished at all. They can’t even get rid of a GOP politician indicted by the FBI on a $60 million bribery scheme that ultimately screwed the Ohio tax payer. In the meantime, let’s monitor the enforcement situation at The Banks and head downtown to enjoy some outdoor public drinking once we all feel safe doing so.