Tuesday, August 7, 2018

Champaign Roundup: Brunch Booze, Police Explorers, Street Honors


First in a followup on a previous post about alcohol serving times when it comes to brunch. From yesterday's News-Gazette:
Want booze with morning brunch?
...
Tuesday night, Champaign's city council will vote on tweaking the existing ordinance that prohibits restaurants from serving alcohol outdoors before 11 a.m. on Saturdays and noon on Sundays.

Under the new proposal, restaurants with permitted outdoor cafes could pour alcohol to customers as soon as they open.

Business owners and diners alike have raised the issue with city officials in recent weeks, with Mayor Deb Feinen answering one query — via Tom Kacich's Mailbag — with a sense of urgency, saying the new rules would go into effect immediately, "so people can still enjoy the remainder of the good weather..."

At Radio Maria on North Walnut St., Manager Jed Bean said city regulations often clash with his customers' wishes. As long as drinks are kept on the restaurant's premises, he said he believes the proposed change is completely reasonable.

The current liquor service regulations were adopted by the city in 1997. It's a whole new downtown Champaign now, McIntosh pointed out, with far more dining options than before.
More at the full article here. On the City of Champaign's Explorer program:
CPD Explorers test life in law enforcement
Spending three hours every other Thursday night learning police tactics might not hold great appeal for some young people, but it does for a group that's been at it since October.

They are members of the Champaign Police Department's Explorer Post 258, a career-oriented program aimed at giving young adults, ages 14 to 21, an introduction to police work...

[Officer and Program Teacher Mike] Talbott said the department had an active Explorer program in the 1990s that disbanded in the latter part of that decade. When Anthony Cobb became police chief in 2012, he wanted it resurrected.

Talbott agreed to step up and has been teaching it since 2013. He gets a helping hand from fellow officer Ashley Eisenbart. The current class has a dozen students ranging in age from 16 to 20.

"They are required to attend meetings. We do training and try to mirror as closely as we can (what's being taught) at the Police Training Institute. We also require each member to complete two hours of community service a month through the police department...

Those who learn they aren't cut out for patrol work might find another niche in criminal justice, like being a probation or parole officer, more appealing, he said.

A new class is slated to begin in October. Students may stay with the program until they turn 21.
More at the full article here. More information at the program's webpage here. And from today's News-Gazette: a City Council update on possibly making certain Honorary Street names permanent for those who made the ultimate sacrifice protecting their community or country:
Champaign council to vote on making street honors permanent for fallen
A city council member is proposing a slight change in the rules for naming honorary streets, prompted by last year's 50th anniversary of the death of police Officer Robert Tatman.

Council member Greg Stock said he would like to see any street named in honor of a city employee who dies on the job to be made a permanent honorary street. Currently, those designations expire after 10 years.

The council is expected to vote on it tonight...

Stock added that the rules could be modified again to include other groups like military members.

[Robert Tatman's sister, Mary Tatman Middleton] came back to town last fall for the service honoring her brother.

"It was great to experience, and I felt so happy and proud, but it was also extremely painful because you're reliving it again," she said.

Middleton said the family didn't know then about the temporary honorary designations for the street names, which made them "kind of angry."

"Why would you have a time limit on somebody who gave the ultimate sacrifice? It's like saying, 'We'll remember you for 10 years, then go remember somebody else.'"
More at the full article here.

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