Go-cups are back!

Go-cups are legal again throughout Lafayette.

The City-Parish Council voted Tuesday to allow bar and club patrons to leave establishments with their alcoholic beverages as long as it's in a plastic, Styrofoam or paper cup.

In 2010, the council voted to outlaw go-cups in three areas of the city with clusters of bars and clubs: Downtown, McKinley Street and Simcoe Street. Councilman Brandon Shelvin sponsored the move Tuesday to bring go-cups back.

"Now it puts all establishments with an alcohol permit on a level playing field," he said Wednesday. "I've always said the ordinance, when it was passed in 2010, was arbitrary and capricious to the downtown area, the Simcoe area and the McKinley Street area.

"Those are the only areas where it's illegal to walk down the street with a go-cup," he said.

Lifting the go-cup ban would have been more important had the council on Tuesday banned smoking in bars and clubs. But that move failed.

Still, Shelvin said he spoke to several club and bar owners who indicated their establishments will go smokeless voluntarily, making the go-cups a necessity when smokers go outside carrying their drink.

Nathan Norris, CEO of the Downtown Development Authority, said Tuesday that downtown bar and business owners and police all saw a need to revisit the go-cup ban, but not to repeal it entirely.

He suggested lifting some restrictions, like allowing go-cup use on Friday and Saturday nights, when bars have their largest crowds, and limiting the go-cups to 16-ounce or smaller translucent cups.

Lafayette Police Chief Jim Craft said downtown bar patrons who go outside to smoke are not the type of people his downtown police detail is concerned with. They're more concerned with people who walk up and down the sidewalk and drink in front of the trunk of their cars.

The council did not agree with the DDA's suggestion.