« Return to Press Room

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wilmington Downtown, Inc (WDI) is proud to announce that downtown Wilmington has been selected as a host for the North Carolina Sociable City Forum.

The Sociable City Forum is a unique one-day forum for state and local leaders to share strategies on how to plan, manage and police hospitality zones in downtown districts. The Sociable City Forum is organized by the Responsible Hospitality Institute (RHI), a private non-profit organization and leading North American expert on nightlife.

In selecting Wilmington, Jim Peters, President of RHI says, “We try to find a host city that can best represent the opportunities and challenges in becoming a more sociable city. Wilmington is a good example of motivated stakeholders working together to create a safer and more vibrant nighttime economy. ”

Addressing the nightlife situation in downtown Wilmington has been an overriding challenging for WDI. According to John Hinnant, Executive Director of WDI, “We have a very vibrant nightlife economy in downtown Wilmington. We have several high quality operators, but we also have some who need to improve, for the sake of our future. The violence, crime and high levels of intoxication are beginning to impact our other economic development efforts. This requires an honest, collaborative process involving all of the stakeholders – locally and statewide. We have already received a great amount of interest statewide regarding the Forum.”   

Additionally, Hinnant adds, “Our marketing research has indicated that the perception of ‘downtown being only bars and drunks fighting’ is hindering our efforts to attract customers to shop, retailers to open shops, and locals from just visiting. This Forum will deal with those perceptions directly, while developing solutions to the problems that exist.”

The June 18^th Forum is scheduled nine months since WDI submitted it's Nightlife Taskforce Report to the Wilmington City Council. The Task Force was chaired by Kevin O’Grady, who was elected to the Wilmington City Council in 2009. O’Grady is also the Immediate Past President of the downtown neighborhood association, Residents of Old Wilmington, and has served on the Board of Directors for WDI for over 4 years. 

About the RHI Forum, O’Grady says, “The Forum will allow us to deepen our understanding of nightlife issues and come up with creative solutions.”

Jon Williams, new Chairman of the NC ABC Commission has confirmed his attendance and plans to participate. Regarding the Forum, Williams said, “My goal is to better understand how we at the state level can provide more support to local authorities. I'm also interested in learning what initiatives have been tried and found to be effective in other communities. Most importantly, I want to know how we at the ABC Commission can use our regulatory authority to work with local authorities to curb violence in areas with a high concentration of nightlife operators.”

About WDI: WDI is a public-private partnership nonprofit organization advocating planned economic growth and development in the downtown Wilmington area. Since 1977, it has served as a vehicle for community improvement and the voice for downtown businesses, residents and tourists.