It’s advice that’s been around a long time: When you have an important decision to make, pull out a legal pad, draw a line down the middle of the page and write “pros” on one side, “cons” on the other. Then list each pro or con.

We recommend this exercise to the Oktibbeha County Board of Supervisors as they make a decision about whether or not to adopt a new ordinance that would prohibit businesses with resort status from the Mississippi Department of Revenue to stay open and sell alcohol after 1 a.m.

If the county adopts the new ordinance, it will affect only one business: Double Headed Eagle Bar and Grill, which is located at the former Cowbells location just east of the Starkville city limits. Cowbells was designated resort status when it opened in 2009, allowing it to operate with extended hours. Cowbells closed in 2020, and in October of this year, a new owner, Nick Plava, opened Double Headed Eagle Bar and Grill at the location and set the closing time on Fridays and Sundays at 3 a.m.

Pull out your legal pad.

Supervisors say the new ordinance would achieve several purposes.

First, it would bring the club into compliance with the Starkville ordinance that sets the closing time for businesses that sell alcohol at 1 a.m. as does the county’s existing roadhouse ordinance.

It would also protect the public. As it is, Double Headed Eagle is a magnet for patrons at other bars looking for a place to keep the party going after the Starkville bars have closed. It’s a potentially dangerous situation, one that heightens the prospects of fights, accidents and DUIs and the tragic circumstances they can lead to. At some point, it’s time to go home, sober up, and go to bed.

For the sheriff’s department, that represents a strain on resources as deputies monitor and respond to incidents at the club until 3 a.m., drawing manpower away from parts of the county.

Those arguments can be listed on one side of the pad.

Yet there is another side to this question.

First, a new ordinance will likely result in a lawsuit against the county. Larry Mitrenga, who owns the property and leases it to Plava, said he will sue the county on the grounds that the new law would cause specific damages to his tenant’s business and cause the tenant to back out of the current lease on the building.

As for the public safety issue, we note that Cowbell’s operated with extended hours for 11 years before closing, a period during which the sheriff’s department had less staffing than now. If the extended hours created a menace to public safety, there should be some effort to quantify the hazard. Where is the data on calls to the sheriff’s department, incidents, injuries, medical emergencies, arrests, DUI’s, wrecks? There are 11 years of information. Supervisors don’t have to guess about the scale of the problem. It is right there in the data.

Did the Cowbells’ owner have an understanding/agreement with the county that Plava does not? How is what Double Headed Eagle doing materially different from how Cowbells operated?

There are valid arguments on both sides; supervisors should carefully consider all these factors before taking any action.

The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.