photo by: Shawn Valverde/Special to the Journal-World

Downtown Lawrence, looking north, is pictured in this aerial photo from September 2023.

During a recent Lawrence City Commission meeting, commissioners had a muddled reaction to the idea of creating an open alcohol consumption area centered around Massachusetts Street.

The plan to create a common consumption area, or CCA, a designated area where people could walk around with drinks they purchased from bars or restaurants that opted in to the program, generated more questions than answers from commissioners. Porter Arneill, the city’s assistant director for arts and culture, said at the time opinion from downtown business owners “runs the gamut.”

The commission asked the city to keep up the planning efforts, but Arneill said few definitive answers to some of the pressing questions can be given because a lack of distinct outlines makes any effects of the district a “guessing game.”

As the city works to distill its ideas for a CCA into a stronger proposal, the Journal-World reached out to cities across the state about the reality of having a common consumption area. Though a law was first passed for the creation of them in 2017, a tweak to the language in 2023 made it easier for CCAs to exist. Since then, 40 others have been proposed across the state.

Mike Nolan, the assistant city manager for Lenexa, said he was a part of discussions with the state Legislature to change the law to allow CCAs. He said legislators expressed concerns the law could make downtowns free-for-alls, turning main streets across Kansas into scenes like Bourbon Street in New Orleans. In practice?

“We haven’t found that to be the case,” Nolan said.

Instead, Nolan said the addition of a CCA allowed the city to operate the Lenexa Public Market and navigate legal red tape.

Nolan said the liquor laws in Kansas — a state that had outlawed alcohol for much of its history, starting in 1880, 40 years before Prohibition — can still be tricky to navigate.

Based on the state’s laws, if the public market did not have the common consumption area, each small business would need to have its own specific space for patrons who bought alcohol. So if you wanted to go to one restaurant and get a beer, and your friend wanted to get food and drinks from a different restaurant, you could not meet in the shared space. Legally, you would each have to sit in an area specific to the restaurant you bought the drink from.

Nolan said having the common consumption area allows individual restaurants to sell their own food and alcohol to customers and let the customers mingle in the public market’s area.

“There was no real operational way to do that while being customer friendly,” Nolan said. “We really needed a CCA for our purposes.”

The Lenexa Public Market’s CCA makes it easier for it to operate, but Nolan said the city has to renew the permit for the district annually in accordance with state law. Its vendors at the public market also apply for a special endorsement with a liquor license that allows them to participate in the CCA. Those sellers have to follow the state regulations, like branding the alcohol sold with either stickers or branded cups, along with some rules that Lenexa has specifically, Nolan said.

Every CCA would have to follow the state regulations, but Nolan said each municipality can create its own layer of rules and regulations that can tailor the CCA to its needs.

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Because of this local flexibility, CCAs look different from community to community in what’s allowed and when they’re in effect.

In Shawnee, the common consumption area is right downtown, near the city hall. When the city closes down public streets for pedestrians for events like the Moonlight Market, the CCA is active.

Pat Shehan, who works for Shawnee, said the CCA has been positive for the city with little pushback from the public. The city hasn’t had issues with public drunkenness, disorderly conduct or similar citations during its downtown events.

The CCA is not just for city events either. Shehan said because Transport Brewery is an approved CCA participant, it can hold its Oktoberfest event in a parking lot that is not normally in its licensed premises without getting additional Kansas Alcoholic Beverage Control permits.

Other communities have their CCAs active all the time.

Collin Bielser, the deputy city manager in Hays, said their common consumption area, which is also centered in the downtown area, has been in effect every day since they passed an ordinance to approve it last October. With Fort Hays State University near the district, the city worked to draw the boundary for the CCA farther away from the typical “college bars,” and Bielser said there has not been an increase in unruliness.

“It hasn’t been a problem at all. I haven’t heard a peep (of complaints),” Bielser said.

Bielser — a proud KU graduate — understands Hays is a much smaller community than Lawrence, meaning there could be big differences in implementing the program. Still, most of the use of the CCA in Hays has been during parades, and the bigger concern from an underage drinking or public nuisance standpoint seems to come from house parties with “red Solo cups,” Bielser said.

If there ever were an issue downtown, Bielser said the city manager could make rules as necessary to combat any potential problems.

“If it was the concern that there’s going to be a crazy, out of control party downtown, the city manager can pull the plug. But it hasn’t been an issue at all.” Bielser said.

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Other states that run similar programs have had no issues, even in college towns similar to Lawrence.

In Ohio, which loosened laws to allow what it calls Designated Outdoor Refreshment Areas, or “DORAs,” in 2015, dozens of cities across the state have implemented areas of their own. The DORAs have similar rules to Kansas’ CCAs: Drinks must be sold in branded cups, there are boundaries with signage to ensure people know the limits and there are set hours when they are operated.

In Oxford, Ohio, which is home to Miami University, the City Council approved a DORA right near the campus of Miami University in June 2020. The DORA in Oxford runs Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. In Oxford, businesses use special compostable DORA cups for serving drinks, and the city has special bins to collect the compostable cups, which alleviated concerns about extra waste.

Jessica Greene, Oxford’s assistant city manager, told the Journal-World via email that although leaders at the university were initially concerned, the city implemented it anyway with the condition that the city manager could “turn off” the DORA if issues came up.

Greene said Miami officials dropped their concerns after a few years because the DORA had not contributed to any increase in underage drinking. Greene said, in general, businesses and residents have been happy with the DORA and frequently utilize it when there are community events like live music in the area.

“People order carryout or bring picnics and then get a DORA cup and sit and enjoy whatever is going on in that park at that time,” Greene said.

Although other communities have found success with the idea of common consumption areas, it doesn’t mean that Lawrence likely faces unique challenges for implementing any plan.

Nolan said any plan will have to answer lots of questions, including figuring out which entities will be responsible for administering the CCA, whether hours are going to be limited and what insurance might be required for the space.

Since the city is still in the very early stages of its planning process, there’s very little indication of a CCA coming to Lawrence anytime soon.

But if details can be ironed out to the liking of the City Commission and the public, Lawrence could find ways to add another potential draw for downtown visitors that has helped many other communities.

“This legislation was geared toward community-wide events on main street,” Nolan said. “CCAs are (a tool) to create vibrancy around that.”