Benton McDonough appreciates the power of conversation. A year into his appointment as Nashville’s first director of nightlife, McDonough has conferred with bar owners, members of Metro Nashville Police Department, the Department of Safety and Homeland Security, nonprofits and residents affected by the noise, traffic and general chaos that has descended upon Nashville’s world-famous Lower Broadway entertainment district.

McDonough’s job will be to reinforce the quality of life downtown without throttling the tourism industry. It’s a tall order, and he’s just getting started.

The first year, McDonough says, has been the “assessment phase” of the recently formed position developed by former mayor John Cooper to handle complaints about noise, safety, traffic and cleanliness along Broadway made worse by roving pedal taverns and party buses packed with the tipsy effusiveness of the soon-to-be-wed and their friends and families. The position was modeled after cities in the U.S. and abroad, including Amsterdam, New York City and Washington, D.C.

McDonough, who also is executive director of the Metro Nashville Beer Board, said one of the biggest surprises of his first year was finding out how much people simply appreciated being heard after a long winter of little to no communication between residents and the city concerning issues along Lower Broadway.

“It seems like there was a long time during which the city wasn’t able to hear people’s concerns,” McDonough says. “This initial period has allowed me to reach out and make that first contact, and that has helped immensely. You spend the first year kind of getting to know people and letting them know that your office exists; that is a lot of it, and I think going into the second year, we will see more program opportunities such as the Safe Bar program.”

Safe Bar, a national 501c3, utilizes bar owners and staff to prevent sexual violence. They’ve partnered with the Tennessee Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence and the Tennessee Department of Health. McDonough also is in the process of building an advisory committee to study the health impact of high decibel exposure on local musicians and to make recommendations for a pilot project after the city passed a bill last summer that requires speakers located within 10 feet of a door or window to face inward.

Early next year, his office will be moving from the Metro Office Building on Second Avenue South to Second Avenue North and Commerce Street in the heart of the district where he says he can watch the action.

“So, we will be down there right in the middle of things,” McDonogh says. “We will also utilize part of the area we have right next to Garth Brooks’ bar. We’re going to have some office space in there, as well.”

McDonough is referring to the new police substation next to Brooks’ new club, Friends in Low Places, which will have a high overview of Broadway. The club, which had a soft opening of the first two floors Black Friday, is expected to fully open in the spring. The new mini station at 411 Broadway is a financial arrangement between the city and Brooks, and includes a Nashville Department of Transportation and Multimodal Infrastructure traffic control room, much needed for the traffic problems plagued by Lower Broad.

The project known as Connect Downtown is “ongoing,” McDonough says, and will implement traffic projects to help with the mobility needs of not only downtown but the region as well, to include transit improvements, curbside management strategies and walking, rolling and biking projects.

He says the Transportation Licensing Commission continues to study the impact of party buses and pedal taverns on traffic as they implement the transit project.

Previously, the city’s police presence on Lower Broadway was managed by officers utilizing overtime to walk the Broadway beat.

Patrons sing along with the live performers at The Valentine on Broadway.

-- Photo By Michelle Morrow |The Ledger

“We went from a situation where the police department operated the entertainment district with offers on overtime versus now having a dedicated force there, which I think has gone a really long way in building rapport with the merchants and the downtown residents,” McDonough says.

Rob Mortensen, spokesperson for the Broadway Entertainment Association, a new coalition of owners of downtown bars, honky-tonks and the Ryman Auditorium, says McDonough is right where he needs to be, getting to know the players.

“There’s a number of things he’s done well,” Mortensen says. “He dove in early and established relationships, which you need to do before you start deciding what needs to be fixed. The reason this job was created was to create a liaison between the mayor’s office and the folks downtown.

“We didn’t need for someone to come in and tell us, ‘Hey, this is what you’ll be doing.’ We needed someone to come down and to understand the issues.”

The thinking of both the BEA and the Office of Nightlife, Mortensen and McDonough say, is that the smaller independent clubs that give Nashville its special sauce are in jeopardy of being eclipsed by the larger celebrity-backed bars, though those clubs they say have a place on Broadway.

“What I think is important to my position is to focus on the small independently owned music venues and try to support them. There should be enough space for everyone to be successful here in Nashville,” McDonough says. “That is something that is critical to our office. We are a partner in The Nashville Independent Study currently taking place right now while we try to find a way to support those smaller venues because those venues are critical to our existence as Music City.”

The study results are expected to come out this spring.

Benton McDonough’s office and staff will soon be moving to space adjacent to Garth Brooks’ new honky-tonk, Friends in Low Places, on Broadway.

-- Photo By Michelle Morrow |The Ledger

Watching Music City change

McDonough was born and raised in Donelson, where he says he had a “great childhood.” After graduating from McGavock High School, he did his undergraduate work at Middle Tennessee State and went on to attend Nashville School of Law. He then landed with the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance, where he worked for the departments that oversee funeral homes, cemeteries and contractors. He’s been in the city long enough to see how issues in the entertainment district developed.

“I can see the changes that have happened to Broadway across the past decade because I’ve tracked them,” McDonough says.

That both of his current positions relate in some way to alcohol is not lost on the new director of nightlife.

“I do tell people that if you had told me that I would simultaneously be given the title of beer board director and director of nightlife, I may have thought I was in a sequel to Animal House because it does sound like some title you would hear at fraternity,” McDonough says.

To that end, he has an understanding spouse in Ashley McDonough and is able to spend time with his two girls, Lucy, 9 and Lilly, 5.

“I’ve been married for 18 years, I have a very lovely and understanding wife who supports me in doing both of these jobs,” he says. “During the weekend, I try to go out several times. I’ll put my daughters down to bed, and then I’ll go out and work with the nightlife team. What I do is a little hard to pin down because it’s a little bit of everything … I have to be available when anything comes up.”

A tourist window shops for a new hat on Lower Broadway.

-- Photo By Michelle Morrow |The Ledger

When asked whether he’s noticed a drop in DUIs with the advance of ride-sharing, he says he “believes so,” adding that it remains to be a problem.

“The nice thing about being the director of nightlife is that you have access to data from other cities and their nightlife programs, as well,” McDonough says. “Seattle had a program where they would provide coupons or discounted cab or Uber fare.

“Some people say after getting a DUI that they couldn’t afford a paid fare home. That is what gave them an excuse to drive drunk. The Sheriff’s Department used to have the designated driver program during the holidays. It seems reasonable to have something like that on a regular basis at least during the weekends.”

Still growing a team

“So far, I have been a team of one for most of the year,” he says. “Now I have an assistant director, Herschel French.” French is the creator, producer, and host of a podcast called A Bigger Table, which broadly addresses cultural issues.

McDonough says he is getting ready to hire a community outreach worker for the Office of Nightlife, a person who will be a liaison between the business owners, the downtown residents and his office.

Partnering with the Sexual Assault Center was a decisive way to make Nashville’s entertainment district more family friendly, McDonough says.

“I remember when I met with the Office of Family Safety and they brought up – and this was early on – the fact that a safe city for women is a safe city for everyone,” he says. “I think having that proactive approach is critical to the success of our city.”

McDonough says he is getting calls from other sections of the city where the action as night falls is getting increasingly busy now that the Department of Nightlife is up and running.

“We’ve had some interaction with the police department and the residents over in Midtown,” McDonough says. “I mean our initial focus was to focus on Broadway because that is where the concerns and the calls came from, but I think because we’ve had success there, that has prompted calls from other sections of town asking if we could assist them and collaborate with them. So, we’ve expanded a little bit to Midtown and to Germantown and then, of course, Five Points over in East Nashville.”

And because the nightlife of a city has broad-reaching effects, McDonough is looking beyond the problems immediately plaguing Broadway.

“Our office is reaching out to nonprofits as well as the school system, setting up an advisory committee to get some idea of what kind of programming would help them because there are instances where we have kids who don’t have proper programming available, and so they tend to make poor choices and get into trouble,” he says. “We want to see what we can do to help them with better choices.”

Asked if he plans to continue being both the director of the beer board and nightlife, he says yes and for a reason.

“I really enjoy doing both, and the work on the beer board informs my nightlife position,” McDonough says. “I had a lot of collaboration with bars and restaurants during COVID, and we were the first in the state to pass delivery curbside, so businesses could continue operating without having to shut down. Having those prior relationships and that trust between the industry and my office goes a long way.”