With all due respect to the desire to increase county revenue, we hope Hamilton County commissioners next week will reject the proposed sale of alcohol for special events at the Tennessee Riverpark, Chester Frost Park and Enterprise South Nature Park.
Were the events somehow closed, where no one else was in the park, we might have a different thought about the sales. But since all three parks are Meccas for families, we don't believe alcohol - no matter how the consumption is controlled - belongs there.
The alcohol sales are part of park policy changes presented to the commission earlier this week and will be voted on Wednesday.
Lee Norris, administrator of county general services, tried to assuage commissioners on the alcohol policy, saying it didn't amount to a "freewheeling" invitation for park-goers to throw wild parties and did not "permit the free consumption of wine or beer or anything else at the parks."
Alcohol consumption only would occur, he said, at organized special events such as wedding receptions or high school reunions. And the revenue, he anticipated, would go back into the parks system.
But Norris might not have helped his case when he also noted that illegal and uncontrolled drinking already occur at the parks.
One of the other changes called for, now based on state law, is that firearms will be allowed in parks. Since alcohol and guns don't mix well, the prohibition of alcohol at the venues is doubly important.
Although the city of Chattanooga allows the consumption of beer or wine at special events, such as Wine Over Water on the Walnut Street Bridge or the Southern Brewers Festival at Ross's Landing Park, both closed events, city code notes, variously, "It shall be unlawful for any person to drink or consume any alcoholic beverages or beer or have an open container of alcoholic beverage or beer in or on any of the following places: (3) public park" and "It shall be unlawful for any person to drink alcoholic beverages in any public park."
We hope commissioners, if they choose not to reject the sale of alcohol at the parks, will help county general services officials narrowly tailor the alcohol policy so the events are in some way cordoned off from the rest of the park and that alcohol consumption is tightly regulated.
But we believe these family friendly venues, where children are playing on swings and seesaws, where people bicycle through natural trails and where parents are enjoying their first tent camping with their children, are best left alcohol free.