Bill limiting new restaurants in South Side introduced
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Mayor Luke Ravenstahl is remaking the city's Parking Authority board, in advance of its major debate this year on long-term leases of garages and parking meters to bail out the city pension fund.
He introduced papers to Pittsburgh City Council today appointing his Finance Director Scott Kunka (replacing former operations director Art Victor), new councilwoman Natalia Rudiak, and Just Ducky tours owner Chris D'Addario to the five-member body. He also reappointed Michael Jasper.
In other city agency news, he appointed councilman Daniel Lavelle to the Urban Redevelopment Authority board (replacing councilwoman Tonya Payne) and councilwoman Theresa Kail-Smith to the Alcosan board (replacing ex-councilman Jim Motznik).
He reauthorized the appointments of councilman Patrick Dowd to the Pittsburgh Water & Sewer Authority board and Dina Klavon to the city Art Commission.
Also this morning in council, Pittsburgh City Councilman Bruce Kraus reintroduced a bill to limit bars on the South Side, after a similar bill was rejected last month by an Allegheny County Common Pleas Court judge.
Mr. Kraus said the new version of the bill would change city zoning rules to prohibit all new restaurants in the Carson Street corridor, whether or not they offered alcohol. According to the city Law Department, he said, if the bill is "alcohol-neutral, it will be held up by the courts."
The councilman has long fought the proliferation of bars in the South Side Flats and said the need for limiting them was underlined this weekend when police charged a city firefighter with drunkenness and assault for an early-morning altercation with a resident of Franklin Court, off South 16th Street. The incident reportedly started when someone in the firefighter's group urinated in the resident's yard.
"If the charges are indeed true, we've really crossed the line in the South Side, and we simply have to get a handle on what's happening there," Mr. Kraus said at council's meeting this morning.
The ordinance will be forwarded to the city Planning Commission before coming back to council for debate.
The prevailing wage bill that the mayor vetoed last year was reintroduced today by a majority of council members. A competing bill from Mr. Ravenstahl is set to be introduced next week.
First Published January 12, 2010 10:41 am
