ORLANDO, Fla. — Several downtown businesses are moving forward with a federal lawsuit, pushing back against the city of Orlando’s After-Midnight Alcohol Sales Permit.

The lawsuit argues the permits, which went into effect last year, place the cost of policing the downtown entertainment area on 33 small business owners. One of those is the Celine Orlando, where owner Eric Fuller is proud of the events they host. 

“Every weekend we book talent from all over the world, and we sell tickets to our events,” said Fuller.

However he says the last year has had its challenges, some of which he says stems from actions taken by the city like the After-Midnight Alcohol Sales Permit.

“You have a city that has imposed exorbitant fees to a select, you know, to a handful of people,” said Fuller. “So it's not ideal.”

The After-Midnight Alcohol Sales Permit requires only some venues to hire extra duty police officers to patrol the downtown entertainment district based on their occupancy.

It’s frustrating for Fuller, when according to the lawsuit, Celine Orlando already pays $108,000 a year for their own security inside the venue.

“There's been severe financial implications to those that are basically affected by, by these fees,” said Fuller.

In the lawsuit, they state Celine’s entire profit margin is consumed by its $12,000 monthly police protection fee, when they’ve never had an OPD officer stationed inside their venue and police have never been called there in the last year.

Annually that adds up over $144,000, and because of that, they’ve had to undergo layoffs to keep their doors open. They say the officers they pay for are often near other businesses who do not pay this fee, which is something they don’t think they should foot the bill for.

“We have the right as Americans to disagree with government thank God for that, and, yeah, we felt what they're doing is just not right and you know, not constitutional, so we filed a lawsuit,” said Fuller.

They are not alone in this as other businesses represented in this lawsuit face the same issues and hope to get some of this money back.

In a statement, a lawyer on the case with the Center for Constitutional Litigation shared, “The case was filed to obtain a refund of the fees paid and an injunction against the permit ordinance’s further operation.”

As for Fuller, he hopes to see the relationship they have with the city change.

“When they're imposing certain restrictions or rules or regulations, I think it's important for them to, to speak to those businesses that they're affecting and  right now that isn't happening,” said Fuller.

According to the City of Orlando, there have been a total of 197 After-Midnight Sales related violations from October 2023 to September 2024.

A representative for the city shared they are not able to comment on this lawsuit due to pending litigation.