Benton Harbor takes one step closer to regulating business hours

BENTON HARBOR, Mich. — The Benton Harbor Public Safety and Public Works committee met Wed. evening, where they pushed forward a resolution to adopt an ordinance that would regulate business hours in the city.

“Since alcohol sales are required to stop at 2 o’clock anyway, the problem that we’re observing is that those businesses that continue on past there, their lights on, and it tends to attract crowds,” said Benton Harbor City Manager, Alex Little.

The proposed ordinance is looking to prohibit operation between the hours of 2 a.m. to 5 a.m. for any business in the City of Benton Harbor that is open to the public for retail sales.

“We had a meeting last week where we invited all of those business owners to come. We had three of them come and they talked about this with us and said that they thought it was a good idea to close early…they wanted it to apply evenly across the board with everybody,” said Little.

The proposed ordinance says any owner that violates the ordinance will face a misdemeanor punishable by up to 90 days in jail and/or a maximum fine of $500. Little said it’s set to be discussed at the next Benton Harbor Commission meeting, but it may not see action quite yet.

“The businesses seem to agree that if everybody simply shuts down at 2 o’clock and reopens at 5 when people are going to work and so forth, that they will have met their business objectives… and will also help themselves as well as us to lessen the problem,” said Little.