The Birmingham City Council voted Tuesday to name Five Points South an “entertainment district,” making it one of only three areas in the city where it’s legal to drink alcohol in public.

The effort was spearheaded by the Five Points Alliance, a consortium of neighborhood business owners and residents. John Boone, the alliance’s vice president, told the council that the ordinance would help the alliance with planning large community events, such as the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade and Taste of Five Points food festival.

“Normally in planning an event, we’d have to come and get a special liquor license for that event,” Boone said. “We’ll still have to come back and get the barricade permit for shutting down streets, but this is going to allow us to carve out parts of the district as the Five Points Alliance and sponsor our own events.”

The ordinance will extend roughly from Woolworth, at 1006 20th St S., to Ocean, at 1218 20th St S., “with a couple of small branches going off to include as many participating businesses with liquor licenses in that area as possible,” Boone said. Currently, he added, approximately 30 businesses have signed on to participate.

The council approved the ordinance unanimously.

Uptown Birmingham, a development near the Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Complex, was named the city’s first entertainment district in 2015; Pepper Place, a multi-use development in the Lakeview Business District, became the second in January 2019.