With an eye on gambling, marijuana and short-term rentals, Norfolk plans for enforcing business regulations

City staff presented plans for a business compliance unit at Tuesday’s City Council work session. After the meeting, Deputy City Manager Michael Goldsmith said regulating businesses has long been a challenge, but the new compliance unit isn’t coming in response to a specific incident or type of business. He said it’s focused on the future and new or growing industries, such as gambling, marijuana and short-term rentals.

City Manager Chip Filer said during the work session that the city has had recent instances of residents taking issue with neighboring businesses or businesses not following city rules, especially as they have welcomed back customers as pandemic restrictions have been loosened. Multiple times at the meeting, council and staff members mentioned night clubs as a focus of the compliance unit.

“We feel the sooner the city can set up (the compliance unit), the better this will be for downtown residents, business owners in compliance, neighbors and visitors,” Vann said.

Goldsmith said the compliance unit is an evolution of regulation processes. He said there are public safety and planning employees that work to educate businesses and enforce regulation, but with short staffing and other responsibilities, they have limited time to focus on business regulations. He said there’s also little connectivity between the employees in different departments.

To unite those employees, the city plans to center operations under the City Attorney’s Office. Many businesses that host events or large crowds and serve or sell alcohol are required to get a conditional use permit from the City Council. The City Attorney advises the council during those hearings and when the council considers revoking them.

Goldsmith emphasized that the city’s goal isn’t to revoke lots of permits — that’s a last resort if a business fails to follow the rules that came with the permit.

The other key element to building the compliance unit will be hiring a senior zoning inspector. That inspector would get a map of all businesses with conditional use permits and information from the police about calls reporting disorder — people urinating in public, excessive noise, showing or firing of guns. From there, the inspector or personnel from a different department could reach out to businesses and work with them to take steps to address the disorderly conduct.

Ultimately, Goldsmith expects the compliance unit — and making rules clearer to businesses — help new businesses get started with fewer issues. “There’s nothing worse than setting up a business ... and then you find out you did something wrong, and you’ve got a whole lot of extra work to do to stay open,” he said.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Councilman Paul Riddick voiced concern with the potential to enforce clubs and establishments frequented by mostly Black customers differently than those with mostly white customers. Councilwoman Courtney Doyle argued that setting up rules would help ensure all businesses are treated the same.

Riddick also suggested implementing the compliance unit could change the character of downtown. He felt that people go to Town Center to have dinner and Granby Street to drink.

The council advised Filer and Goldsmith to continue developing the unit. Goldsmith said the city’s goal is to implement it around the start of 2022.