Restaurant Owners Working on Petition to Bring BYOB to a Vote in November

The crowds flocked to the Ocean City Boardwalk on Friday afternoon to take advantage of an unseasonably warm February day.

At the same time, Kevin Scull and Bill McGinnity sat in a nearly empty restaurant four blocks away on Asbury Avenue. The two restaurant owners knew there was little chance the bonanza would move downtown for a sit-down dinner.

Ocean City’s dining establishments, which are prohibited from selling alcohol, hardly share the lure of the island’s beach and boardwalk. Few upscale restaurants even venture to remain open through the dead of winter.

Scull and McGinnity believe one thing can help change the reputation of the Ocean City dining scene: permission to allow patrons to bring their own wine or beer. They are waiting for a local lawyer to draft a petition calling for an ordinance allowing “Bring Your Own Bottle,” or BYOB, establishments in a city that has banned the sale of alcohol for more than a century.

The two men are vice presidents of the Ocean City Restaurant Association, a group of 54 restaurants and food-based establishments. They want Ocean City voters to decide in November whether to permit BYOB restaurants.

The group plans to petition for a public question on the November ballot. The petition must include the signatures of enough registered Ocean City voters to equal 15 percent of the votes cast in the last General Assembly election, according to Jeff Sutherland, an attorney and Ocean City resident representing the group.

Archived election results posted on Cape May County’s website show 4,976 ballots cast by Ocean City voters in the 2009 General Assembly election. If the petition gets 746 signatures, by an unofficial calculation, the question would be added to the November ballot.

“We don’t want to change what Ocean City is,” said Scull, a Mays Landing resident who has owned and operated at 955 Asbury Ave. for the past five years. “We want the same family feel.”

But Scull and McGinnity say, for better or worse, diners expect more than just food as part of a restaurant experience. They believe the ability to allow diners to have a drink with their meal is central to sustaining the local restaurant industry.

They also say a BYOB ordinance would help all Ocean City businesses by creating an eat, shop and stay experience on the island, particularly in the shoulder seasons.

“We want to enhance what we can provide to the consumer,” said McGinnity, a 1982 Ocean City High School graduate and owner of at 104 Asbury Ave., which is closed for the season.

What the restaurants are proposing is likely to cause a heated debate in the city.

Ocean City’s brand as a dry town and “America’s Greatest Family Resort” has been wildly successful and draws hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. The city was founded as a Methodist retreat and proudly maintains that clean image.

When news of a potential petition drive first surfaced in January, City Council issued a pre-emptive strike, to oppose "any effort to remove the prohibition of consuming alcoholic beverages in restaurants, cafes or food establishments." (Councilmen John Kemenosh and Scott Ping were not present at the meeting.)

"I've learned what an emotional, volatile issue this is," Councilwoman Karen Bergman said at the meeting.

"We have a niche," Councilman Keith Hartzell said. "We're Ocean City. We're known as a family resort."

Mayor Jay Gillian also said he opposes any effort to change what has always worked for Ocean City.

Reached on Friday afternoon, Sutherland emphasized that the petition he's drafting is designed not only for proponents of a BYOB ordinance. It calls for the public question, and opponents could sign if they believe the vote would put the issue to rest. 

He said the petition and a potential ordinance could limit hours when BYOB would be permissible, limit quantities that could be consumed or limit places where it would be allowed. He will meet with restaurant owners to discuss the potential limitations before completing his work.

The initiative would be limited to beer and wine, according to state law that also prohibits advertising BYOB establishments and charging any "corking fee" (at establishments that don't have a liquor license).

Sutherland, a longtime Ocean City resident, said the initiative could provide an opportunity to keep good restaurants in Ocean City and preserve the character of the resort at the same time.

He said he respects people’s right to say, “I like Ocean City just the way it is.” But he wants to dispel the notion that a BYOB law would create a new safety hazard from drunken drivers (who are driving farther under the current law, he says) or create “Animal House” in the restaurants (there would be no incentive for restaurant owners to permit it, he says).

Scull said restaurant owners had talked about the possibility of BYOB since the formation of the Ocean City Restaurant Association in July 2007.

But it wasn’t until The Press of Atlantic City expressed interest in writing about the budding BYOB movement that the association took any action. They figured if the newspaper was willing to write about a movement, they had better start one.

“What pushed us through is the A.C. Press contacted us and said they were going to do an article," Scull said. "We weren’t in the position to go forward.”

The story in The Press and a subsequent editorial cited a Facebook page, which Scull says was started last summer by an Ocean City business owner but not a “restaurant person.” He declined to name the creator, and the page includes no information on its source, though it has 561 Facebook members who "like" it.

The comments on the Facebook page are in favor of BYOB and largely suggest that it would eliminate the need to drive off the island for fine dining.

“There’s been some miscommunication of what we’re trying to do,” Scull said. "You don’t want to turn it into a free-for-all.” 

What Scull does want is for Ocean City residents to be able to decide for themselves. And they're likely to see a petition calling for that soon.

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