Residents and businesses in Greenville welcome downtown social district

GREENVILLE, Pitt County — Starting October 6th, people in Greenville will be able to take alcohol out of a bar and walk to other businesses within designated areas downtown as part of the new social district plan by the city.

People and businesses in the area said they have been waiting for the social district as a way to enhance the City of Greenville. They added that it’s a step in the right direction to draw in more people.

Tiffany Steffenson, a Greenville resident and student at East Carolina University, said she believes the new plan will benefit businesses in the area,

“It’s really like good marketing strategy for all the companies downtown.”

The new social district plan will operate Thursday through Saturday from 5:00 P.M. through 10:00 P.M.

The two approved social districts are the Uptown Social District and the Dickinson Avenue Social District.

Each district will operate independently, and alcoholic beverages cannot be taken from one social district to the other.

Greenville business owner, Matthew Scully, said the more that can do to encourage people to come downtown, the better it is for the entire City.

“It really is a vibrant place, it’s become a really cool center of our community.” Said Sculley, owner of the Scullery, “I know we’ve gotten to know a lot of the different business owners and it’s just a really great community of people, so I’m excited that they’ll have another opportunity for people to come down and have a good time and for people to be able to go back and forth between businesses, I think is a really cool opportunity.”

Sculley encouraged people to be smart about the social district plan, but said he believes it could work.

Joshua Linton, a person living in Greenville said he agrees with Sculley,

I believe that everybody has the right amount of courtesy to know like what to do, what not to do, like it’s a privilege and I think we should respect it in that type of way, so I think it’ll work out okay.

The downtown Greenville area has signage posted to show people where they can enter with alcoholic beverages.