allow bars and restaurants to host larger Jaguars game day crowds more often<\/a> over the next two NFL seasons.<\/p>\nThe approved ordinance allows qualifying businesses to temporarily expand their outdoor spaces during Jacksonville Jaguars home games as EverBank Stadium undergoes renovations, and during the team’s temporary relocation to Orlando in 2027.<\/p>\n
Jacksonville Beach City Council and Mayor Christine Hoffman narrowly passed the ordinance with a 4-3 vote.<\/p>\n
Establishments were already allowed to expand their capacity up to two times a year, but the pilot program gives them the opportunity to do so up to six more times, from one hour before kickoff until one hour after the game ends.<\/p>\n
The program runs from Aug. 1, 2026 to the end of the Jaguars’ 2026 season, and from Aug. 1, 2027 to the end of the Jaguars’ 2027 season.<\/p>\n
Council Member Sandy Golding, who voted against the ordinance, expressed concerns about the role alcohol could play as businesses expand their capacity.<\/p>\n
“I’ll just reiterate what I said at the last meeting, I still have concerns about this because when I talk to residents, they are always telling me that they want less alcohol-related events here in Jax Beach.”<\/p>\n
Council Member Dan Janson pushed back, saying, “It’s not limited to just alcohol, but a lot of folks will go out there and they’ll have food as well… so it’s not just an alcohol event.”<\/p>\n
Janson previously told First Coast News that the city would monitor the program closely.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not anticipating that huge of an influx and the key here is it\u2019s a pilot program,” Janson said. “So, if things start going in the wrong direction or we see an influx or we can\u2019t handle the security of it, then, as a pilot program, we can shut it down.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A two-year pilot program will allow bars and restaurants to host larger Jaguars game day crowds during the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294480,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-294479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}