SALISBURY — After receiving a request from the businesses involved in the downtown social district, the Salisbury City Council voted to remove a regulation that had made the city more restrictive than any others in the state.

The rule in question stated that providers of alcoholic drinks in the social district were required to place the purchaser’s name and date and time of the purchase on the cup. The Downtown Salisbury Bar and Restaurant Guild, which represents most of the downtown ABC permit holders, sent a request to the city saying that the regulation, which was unique in the state, placed an unnecessary burden on their ability to sell drinks.

“We are asking that the council consider removing these additional requirements from the statutes, as it is an added burden to our businesses. Based on the reports from Salisbury PD, we believe removing this measure will improve our business, without causing any issues for the safety of our downtown,” the organization wrote in a letter to the city council.

Sada Stewart Troutman, executive director of Downtown Salisbury Inc., said that she surveyed the businesses that sell drinks inside the district and 13 out of 14 of them said that writing the name, date and time discourages them from selling drinks. The same number said that they have had no issues with crime or underage drinking attempts since the start of the social district and 10 said that the social district positively impacts their districts. One respondent said that they had not yet started selling drinks.

That portion of the Downtown Salisbury Social District ordinance was added on by the city council on top of what was required in the state. Troutman reported that no other city in the state that has allowed social districts has that rule in place, and those locations did not report any increase in crime or underage drinking as a result of their districts.

“When you adopted this in 2022, there was an addition to make sure that this was adopted safely and responsibly in Salisbury. That addition is only required by Salisbury and is not anything that the state would mandate. Again, it was done to make sure that the social district was enacted safely and we considered this on a trial basis to prove that it was something that was going to be useful to Salisbury,” said Troutman.

Councilor Harry McLaughlin asked if the police department was comfortable with the change, to which Police Chief Patrick Smith said that it did not raise any concerns.

After the discussion, the council voted unanimously to remove the part of the ordinance stating that the name of the purchaser and the date and time the drink was purchased must be written on the cup.