CALAIS – Because of the serious drug and alcohol problem Down East, should the city be engaged in promoting outdoor beer tents?

A city councilor raised the question last week when the panel considered an application by Phil Tinker, owner of the Town House Restaurant, for permission to operate a beer tent on a vacant lot next to his restaurant during the International Festival in August.

Councilor Joyce Maker said she believes that the city, by allowing public drinking during the festival, was sending the wrong message to the city’s youth. She said there are people working in the city to create drug and alcohol programs, yet councilors were endorsing the very substance that others were fighting.

The question was placed before councilors last week, and at least three felt the city should allow such a business venture during the festival. Maker and Councilor Ferguson Calder voted against the measure. Councilors Billy DelMonaco, Steve Driscoll and Earl Jensen favored it. Councilor Gregg Carter did not attend the meeting.

Maker said that she drinks and was not raising the objection because of an opposition to alcohol. But she pointed out that there was no beer tent at the Blueberry Festival in Machias, nor in St. Stephen, New Brunswick, which co-hosts the International Festival.

“I just don’t think we are setting an example for our children, and we need to stand up and start doing it for them,” she said.

When Tinker tried to interrupt Maker, Mayor Eric Hinson gaveled him to be quiet. When he was allowed to speak, Tinker said, the International Festival Committee had asked him to have the beer tent or that a business in St. Stephen would erect one.

Tinker said the beer tent benefited the city economically because visitors to the festival tended to stay in local motels and eat at local restaurants. He said the beer tent also employed 50 to 70 people. He suggested that if she were opposed to drinking, the city should also close the restaurants where alcohol is served.

“If you have it in your restaurant, I would have no problem with that,” Maker responded. But she said she believes having it on the street with families walking by is not appropriate.

Tinker said he was careful and did not allow underage people inside.

“I am really getting tired of the word drug being used when I apply for a beer tent. This is a social event. It is not just a beer tent. It’s entertainment that I pay for,” he said.

The Rev. Bob Hinton, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Calais, said he agrees with Maker. “I think we’re being kind of hypocritical in the whole thing when we encourage the school department to set drug policies. Somebody on the basketball team gets caught drinking and we expect them to be dealt with,” he said. “I think it’s a bad policy. We are setting a double standard in what we are expecting from our young people.”

Tinker told Hinton it was not a young person’s event.

When the mayor called for a vote, Jensen moved that Tinker be allowed to sponsor a beer tent. DelMonaco seconded it. The measure was approved by a vote of 3-2.