Ringgold considers allowing beer, wine sales at hotels

The city of Ringgold is moving toward allowing the sale of beer and wine to guests staying at city hotels.

During the Oct. 14 City Council meeting, the board discussed the possibility of selling packaged alcohol hotel guests per the request of Tru by Hilton, a new hotel slated to open up in the coming months.

Gautam Nanda, the current general manager at the Holiday Inn Express, will manage the Tru by Hilton when it opens. He explained that Hilton’s request is designed to allow hotel guests the opportunity to enjoy alcoholic beverages in their rooms.

“This is a request just for the sale of bottled beer and wine in our Sundry Shop” Nanda said. “There’s no service whatsoever that we’re going to be carrying on at the property – there’s no bottle opening or anything, and it’s exclusively for guests to carry up to their rooms. It’s a very very limited service that we’re putting in to cater to the kind of clientele we are going to have at this new hotel.”

Nanda said a lot of times guests want to just relax in their rooms with a beer or glass of wine after a day of traveling, which is why the hotel wants to accommodate that by allowing guest to purchase the alcohol the same as they can from a grocery store or gas station.

Nanda also assured the board that his hotels have a stringent alcohol training program for staff members so they’ll know who to serve and who not to.

“In managing hotels in your city for the last 15 years – I’ve been here since 2003 – the training that will be embodied to our hotel staff

The City Council will address the issue in three public hearings slated to take place during the next three meetings slated for Oct. 28, Nov. 11 and Nov. 23.

is going to be “serve safe alcohol training,” Nanda said.

The request would allow the staff to sell alcohol to only the hotel guests with one caveat.

“It will be restricted mostly; I would say 95-percent, to our hotel guests, nobody from outside,” Nanda said.

The only exception to that rule would be buyers who aren’t staying at the hotel, but are a member of the hotel’s Hilton Honors program. In that scenario, Nanda explained staff would sell to those buyers due their information and profile already existing in the hotel’s database.

While the request for the amendment came specifically from Tru by Hilton, Mayor Nick Millwood and other members of the board did discuss that the change would apply to all hotels and motels in the city.

“This would have to be something that would probably be, if included in an ordinance, would be for our hotels generally,” Mayor Millwood said.

Ultimately, Councilman Larry Black motioned to move forward with the request and have the city draft the change with a first reading to take place at the next meeting.

“So, we have a motion to have our city attorney draft a change to the ordinance to allow beer and wine sales at hotels,” Mayor Millwood clarified.

The motion was unanimously approved 5-0.