Peddling with brewskis: Columbus considers alcohol-enhanced architecture tours

Would you like some beer or wine with your architecture?

In the near future, Columbus residents and visitors may find a different kind of architectural tour on tap — pedal pub tours.

A pedal pub tour is an organized excursion in which several passengers pedal a large trolley-like bicycle around to local bars and other areas of interest while a designated driver steers the vehicle and controls the brakes.

The city is in the process of drafting an ordinance that would create the legal framework for pedal tours to roll into downtown Columbus, according to city officials. The ordinance will likely cover safety, pickup and drop-off points, use of public right-of-way, hours of operation, among other requirements. The city has looked at similar ordinances in Bloomington, Nashville and St. Petersburg, Florida.

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“More than likely they will be coming to town, but we don’t know when this ordinance will be completed and presented to the city council,” said Columbus City Councilman Frank Miller, who leads the council’s Ordinance Review Committee.

The talks came after Ashton Wischmeier, co-owner of Pedal Pub Bloomington, approached the city several months ago to inquire about operating a Pedal Pub franchise in Columbus, Miller said.

No specific routes have been set at this point, but they would likely loosely follow the downtown portion of the current bicycle architectural tour routes, Miller said. The Visitors Center offers several bicycle architectural tours, including two- and three-mile tours of the downtown area that feature stops at the Irwin Conference Center on Washington Street, the Cerealine Building on Jackson Street, among others.

“From the Visitor Center’s perspective, any tourism amenity that helps builds our destination is a real positive,” said Karen Niverson, Columbus Visitors Center executive director. “A new experience that we can market to visitors is always very welcome.”

In addition to architectural stops, the pedal pub tour also could include stops at several bars and restaurants, including Zwanzigz, Upland Columbus Pump House, Columbus Bar, 4th Street Bar & Grill, among others, Miller said.

“It’s almost the cart before the horse at this point,” Miller said. “It’s hard to talk about anything specific because we’re still drafting.”

Pedal Pub franchises

Pedal Pub is a Minnesota-based franchise that provides pedal tours in more than 50 cities in the United States and Canada, including Bloomington and Indianapolis, according to the company’s website. Columbus would be the franchise’s third location in Indiana.

In Columbus, the customer base would likely be birthday parties, corporate team building excursions, tourists, groups of friends or other “demographics who have never been on an architectural tour,” Wischmeier said.

“In Columbus, it seems like we’re reinventing the wheel,” Wischmeier said. “There’s nobody out there using a vehicle like this for architectural tours … I think there are a lot of people who would like to have a glass of wine or beer and explore the beauty of Columbus and see some architecture.”

Wischmeier said he and his partners are working with the city to determine if beer and wine — no hard liquor — can be consumed on board the vehicles in open container fashion and feels optimistic about that possibility.

“It would be bring your own alcohol,” Wischmeier said. “We will not distribute or serve alcoholic beverages on the bikes. We are working with the city to see how the state and the city want to view open container laws. Indianapolis allows alcohol on the bikes, Bloomington does not.”

How the tour works

The tours would have fixed routes and would only operate in the downtown area, Wischmeier said.

Reservations would need to be made in advance, and the cost to reserve a seat or an entire bike depend on the type of tour and the date and time. Though pricing and hours of operation for the tours in Columbus are still in the works, in Bloomington, it typically costs $350 to $375 to reserve an entire bike and $20 to $25 to reserve a single seat, according to Pedal Pub Bloomington’s website. The earliest tour in Bloomington starts at 11 a.m., and the last tour ends at around 9 p.m.

Wischmeier said he envisions similar pricing and schedules for the tours in Columbus.

Niverson said the Visitors Center has been working with Wischmeier to “offer information and suggestions about talking points about our iconic architecture.” The drivers will be knowledgeable about the architecture on the tour, and the bikes will have speakers so passengers can hear the driver, Wischmeier said.

The bikes are 16 feet long, approximately 9.5 feet tall and weigh just over 1 metric ton, Wischmeier said. Riders will have to be at least 18 years old. There are 10 pedaling seats on the bikes, but there is space for a total of 16 passengers. At least eight passengers are required for a tour.

The bikes also have headlights, brake lights, turn signals and an electric motor to help with hills and inclines. The speed of the bikes averages between four and six miles per hour.

Wischmeier said he initially plans to have two in operation in Columbus.

Legal concerns

The tours come with some legal concerns, however.

Among the concerns include potential violations of the Indiana open container laws, which generally prohibit consuming and possessing open containers of alcoholic beverages in a motor vehicle except in certain circumstances, such as the passenger compartment of vehicles like cabs and limousines or in the living quarters of a house trailer, according to the Indiana Code.

Lt. Matt Harris, Columbus Police Department spokesman, said that as long as only the passengers on the bike consume alcohol, not the driver of the vehicle, there would be no violations of the state’s open container laws.

“Pedaling a cart like that in Columbus would not be a violation of open container laws as the statute is currently written,” Harris said.

The Indiana Alcohol & Tobacco Commission, for its part, agrees with the Columbus Police Department’s assessment.

“It is my understanding that peddle bars fall into the open container law exception under 9-30-15-3,” said Lindsay Hyer, counsel and director of communications for the Indiana Alcohol & Tobacco Commission.

Section 9-30-15-3 says that Indiana’s open container law does not apply to a container possessed by a person who is not the operator of the motor vehicle and is in the “passenger compartment of a motor vehicle designed, maintained or used primarily for the transportation of persons for compensation,” according to the Indiana Code.

Wischmeier said the drivers go through a training process that lasts approximately two months, which includes how to deal with an intoxicated passenger. If a person looks intoxicated, they will not be allowed to get on the bike or would be removed if already on the bike and the police would be notified immediately.

“All of our drivers are fully trained to handle that situation,” Wischmeier said.

Though passengers under the age of 21 will be allowed on the bikes, different colored wristbands will be used to signify if they are old enough to be drinking, Wischmeier said.

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Visit pedalpub.com for more information about Pedal Pub tours.

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