Tateke Keterate said he wishes the Columbus City Council would have talked to business owners before implementing rules reducing their stores’ operating hours.
Keterate works at what he says most people know as the Key Station at 611 Waterworks Road. The store, which is near at least one occupied single-family home, normally stays open until 11 p.m. Sunday through Wednesday and midnight Thursday through Saturday.
On Oct. 6, those hours will change due to an ordinance the council unanimously approved Tuesday.
The new rules set a 10 p.m. closing time for convenience stores that are less than 4,500 square feet and within a single-family residential neighborhood, in a neighborhood commercial district within 50 feet of a single-family residential property or in a highway commercial district within 60 feet of a single-family residential neighborhood and 175 feet of a multi-family property.
Columbus Building Inspection Department Director Kenneth Wiegel said the new ordinance will affect approximately 13 stores. The city declined to name those stores.
Keterate said the lost hours will probably cost the business, which his wife owns, about $500-$600 a week.
“Every penny helps us,” he said. “We don’t have to stay until midnight, but if we need the money, we stay. I would close at 6 p.m. every day if I had the money, but I can’t.”
Opinions aren’t unanimous among convenience store owners, however. John Musa, owner of United Deli and Grocery, said he supports the new ordinance.
Musa closes his store at 9 p.m. every day but Sunday, when he closes at 3 p.m. With those closing times, the ordinance wouldn’t change anything for his business, though there are a few residences nearby.
Still, Musa, who’s previously worked in Brooksville and Memphis, said he’s worked with later hours in the past, and the shift didn’t harm business.
“All of my customers know I close at 3 p.m., so now they come to get their food before I close. I used to close at 10 p.m.; now that I close at 9 p.m., I get the traffic between 8-9 p.m. It’s the same; it doesn’t hurt.”
One of Keterate’s main complaints — along with those of several convenience store owners and works who attended Tuesday’s council meeting — is that the council didn’t provide a chance for feedback or involvement before approving the new ordinance.
“They should have said, ‘Store owners, we have a problem. We’re going to have a meeting.’ That’s the way it should be,” he said.
During the meeting, board attorney Jeff Turnage told councilmen they didn’t require a hearing, thanks to a statute in Mississippi Code that affords police powers to regulate the opening and closing times of businesses that sell beer and light wine.
“When you have police powers to do such things, you don’t have to have notice and an opportunity for a public hearing or any other due process, according to the case law interpreting that statute,” Turnage said.
Councilmen approved the measure in response to feedback gathered at town hall meetings in the spring after a shooting at Sim Scott Park. At the meeting, Columbus Police Chief Tony Carleton said it should help address fighting, drug sales, gang activity, loud noises.
Musa said he believes the ordinance will ultimately help address some crime issues. He also said it could have a ripple effect of having officers less focused on areas around convenience stores and thus able to respond to other emergencies.
“After 10 p.m., I think it will help focus on sick people and older people who need help,” Musa said.
Some workers remained skeptical that closing the stores early would fix the problem. Gloria Wilkson, who spoke to The Dispatch after Tuesday’s meeting, said the onus should be on law enforcement to address the crime issues, rather than burdening stores with shorter hours.
Keterate said the people who gathered at convenience stores would likely continue to do so or just go somewhere else.
The ordinance’s passage stings particularly hard for Keterate and his wife because, as far as he knows, the woman who lives in the house close enough to make the store eligible for the restriction hasn’t complained about anything, he said.
“She hasn’t complained to me,” he said. “Because of one or two stores, they are hurting everyone.”
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