- April 18, 2024
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There aren't any bottle clubs in Palm Coast, and it's going to stay that way.
The Palm Coast City Council voted unanimously at its regular March 15 meeting to add the clubs — establishments where patrons bring their own booze and have it served back to them — to a list of banned land uses that includes hog farming, puppy mills and asphalt plants.
It was the city's tenth public hearing on the clubs and the City Council's second and final vote, and the council did not discuss the issue at the March 15 meeting. They'd done so many times before, and had already voted unanimously to ban the clubs in an initial public hearing March 1.
No members of the public came forward during the March 15 meeting, or any other, to argue in favor of the clubs, although one man sent an email to City Council members and the local press March 9 saying that he wanted to open an age 40+ "dance club" in Palm Coast that would be licensed as a bottle club and cater to the over-60 crowd.
"Why am I divulging my business plans to you at this time? Because you’re on the verge of putting me out of business before I even open my doors," Zito Offenheimer wrote.
Flagler Beach and Ormond Beach already ban bottle clubs, which have been associated with crime in Florida. The clubs often stay open into the early morning hours, after regular bars have closed.
After the city started getting questions about a potential bottle club in City Marketplace — and a slew of emails from residents and business owners asking officials to stop the proposed club — the city began considering banning the clubs, and the Flagler County Sherifff's Office looked into their link with crime in other counties.
Sheriff's Office Palm Coast Precinct Cmdr. Mark Carman told city officials in presentations at public meetings that just one Volusia County bottle club had 453 emergency calls — with 44 fights and two associated homicides — over a 33-month period, while a cluster of three bottle clubs in Hillsborough County had 130 emergency calls — including 12 cases of battery and four shootings, with one fatality — in one year.
The city's planning staff moved quickly to craft an ordinance that would add bottle clubs to a list of banned land uses, and that defines bottle clubs in a way that would not include civic organizations and other clubs that occasionally have patrons bring alcohol.
View the bottle club ordinance and the emails to local officials in the City Council meeting documentation, HERE.
