SALEM — Salem’s Designated Outdoor Refreshment Area (DORA) will be renewed for the next five years, but will not be in effect for the Super Cruise this year.

The city council voted unanimously to approve two ordinances concerning the DORA in its meeting Tuesday. One ordinance officially renews the DORA for the next five years, fulfilling the city’s legal obligation to officially review whether to continue the DORA every five years, including a public hearing for feedback on the DORA which was held on May 7. The second ordinance removes the prohibition against the DORA being in operation during the weekend of the Super Cruise specifically, shifting the question of whether it will be in effect for any given event to the application completed by organizers and submitted to the city council for review as outlined in the city’s event ordinance.

While city officials have maintained that the change places the decision of whether the DORA will be in effect for an event in the hands of the event planner, the ordinance has been met with concerns from residents about the DORA possibly being in effect during the cruise. That trend continued Tuesday with former Super Cruise Director Gene Johnson and resident Jim Kelley both reiterating concerns around having alcohol near the cars on display, and with the proliferation of alcohol driving away the cruisers and car clubs that participate in the event annually.

“Any owner of classic cars prefers people not be drinking around their cars. I for one don’t want anyone drinking around my cars. If I’ve got a classic car there that I’ve put all the money and labor into, I don’t want to have to repair anything on it because somebody was drinking and caused a problem,” said Kelley.

Councilman Jeff Stockman reiterated that the change was simply being made to remove the names of a specific event from the city ordinances, and that the Super Cruise director would still have the choice of whether to designate the Super Cruise as a DORA event when they fill out the event application each year.

“It’s just going to remove specifically the Super Cruise as a non-DORA event. The organizer of the event, when he fills out the application, can just say [they] don’t want DORA on the application, which will go to council and we’ll say, ‘not a problem, you will not have DORA during the Super Cruise,'” Stockman said. “We’re just changing it, so you don’t have specific events called out in the ordinances of the city of Salem since we have an even ordinance that covers them all. In other words, you as the organizer would come to city council with your application that says you don’t want DORA during the car cruise and it wouldn’t be [in effect] for the cruise, so it’s kind of a moot point.”

Cruise Director Brian May asked the council if he needed to do anything for the DORA to not be in effect during this year’s Super Cruise since the version of the event application he filled out did not have the section regarding DORA yet. City Council President Evan Newman and City Law Director Brooke Zellers suggested he make a formal request that DORA be suspended during this year’s cruise to be voted on by the council for the sake of clarity. The council ultimately voted unanimously to approve the request.

During his report, Zellers reiterated his comments from the city council’s last meeting on May 7 that many people misunderstand what the DORA permits.

“You cannot bring your own beer can, tallboy, liquor bottle to a DORA area. That’s illegal. To drink a drink in a DORA zone you must follow all laws of the state of Ohio and ordinance of the city of Salem. Those ordinances require you buy that drink inside of a bar that sells them in the DORA cups. You must be sober to buy one just like you must be sober to buy a drink,” Zellers said. “You cannot walk around the streets of Salem intoxicated, that’s a crime, you cannot violate those laws.

“We all know there is a lot of unregulated drinking that occurs during the Super Cruise event, we all know that. So in essence the people that have gone to the trouble to go into an establishment, pay for that cup, be served in a cup because they are sober, are the most responsible drinkers of anybody that might be drinking at an event.”

The city council will meet next at 7 p.m. on June 2.