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Regular City Council Meeting Monday,November 27, 2023 Page 11 why the City has only eight of the twelve premises even being used, of which, at least half, are the organization itself. Mayor Roe noted it seems the Council wants to do something and it is going to require some staff thought and possibly an initial, simpler step of increasing the limit from three to four to deal with the pending transaction and then bring back more sophisticated data. Councilmember Groff explained he would be supportive of the organization because it is doing a lot of good work in the community that seems to be reflecting a lot of the values that he would like to see with the youth and what the final document looks like can be looked at. He would not want half to be going to one group either but thought the City should proceed with this. Mr. Trudgeon indicated he was not sure what other cities are doing but staff spent an extensive amount of time in 2017 looking at the trade area so the City has these built-in standards that are designed to benefit. The fact that the City increased it to twelve from eight, he thought, was to try to get some more organizations in the sites. But the fact that there are no additional licenses out seems to him that there is capacity for those that want to do it but choose not to for whatever reason. He would be a little leery, to be honest, until he hears more about how the City would either pull something back or have some type of automatic triggers in there. He thought probably the direct route is the best way to do it,change the number,if that is what the Council would want to do. If it becomes a problem at some point, whether it be the total number of licenses or there are additional requests, the City can deal with that more directly with the facts at hand at that time. Perhaps the short-term solution is to increase it to four and then it would be a simple fix to the ordinance and publish it for further review in January. In the meantime, staff can look at what other cities are doing and how they have dealt with this number. Mayor Roe indicated personally he was not ready to go to five yet but four seems like something the City could do, it would be a relatively easy change, and might be the first step. Councilmember Strahan explained she was not really comfortable even moving to four at this point. She felt like hockey is not very diverse and not the most accessible sport for the masses. Most kids are not going to play it and there are a lot of other sports like baseball, basketball, and other things within the City. Also, a gambling manager needs to be named in order to have a license along with paid staff and training. She thought if there are so few entities in the City who are interested, when you have someone who is trained and out there, she was a little concerned that the few entities that do exist have the tenacity of the hockey people to get them first. She felt they would seek more and the ones driving this thus far.