MORGANTOWN — It’s not often that applause breaks out at a Morgantown City Council meeting.
It happened Tuesday.
With a unanimous vote, council adopted the ordinance creating a Planned Outdoor Designated Area, or PODA, in the city that spearheaded the two-year effort to get the statewide enabling legislation passed in 2023.
A PODA is a designated district in which participating businesses can sell beverages containing alcohol to customers who can carry those beverages with them to other locations within the district.
Starting May 15, Morgantown’s PODA will be comprised of the city’s downtown and Wharf districts.
While it was initially planned to be active Thursday through Sunday, the ordinance was amended prior to passage on Tuesday to extend active hours from 4 p.m.- 10 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m.-10 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.
A large crowd turned out to support the ordinance. Nearly a dozen individuals spoke in favor of passage.
The point most wanted to drive home is that while the PODA bill is about alcohol on the surface, it’s really about spurring economic activity.
It was pointed out that cities and states across Appalachia are looking to embrace recreation as they diversify their economies. For example, Ohio already has nearly 120 of these recreational districts statewide.
Morgantown is now the fourth city in West Virginia to put a PODA in place, joining Charleston, Huntington and Parkersburg.
“This is part of a slate of policies that is really, at the base of it, the emergence of a recreational economy in the state of West Virginia. More largely, West Virginia is becoming something it has not been in the past,” Sam Workman said.
Chestnut Brew Works proprietor Bill Rittenour said he’s preparing to open a second location at 132 Pleasant Street.
He explained these are the kinds of experiences that can help make the city’s downtown a destination and a place people look forward to returning to.
L.J. Giuliani took it a step further, calling the city’s downtown “the original town center,” in reference to the two large shopping destinations on the city’s periphery.
“We have a tool right here that sets us apart from the town centers, that designates us as a destination,” he said.
