By Alaina Denean Deshazo
The Selma Times-Journal

Main Street Selma held its third Downtown After Dark event Thursday as people packed Charlie’s Place for an open mic night.

“It was great. We had a full house. The band was good and everybody seemed to enjoy themselves,” said Charlie Morgan, owner of Charlie’s Place. “It’s real good [to see people come out]. That’s the real people you see in Selma. It’s not everything that you hear all the time, we do get along with each other.”

Morgan said it’s essential for people to come out and support local businesses and interact with other people in the community.

“I think its real important, especially if the community supports it,” Morgan said. “That’s biggest thing, for business to do things like that, that we have to have the support of the local people.”

Clay Carmichael, president of Main Street Selma, said the organization plans to continue Downtown After Dark every second Saturday at different businesses downtown.

“Part of the reason we’re doing this is so people will come out and go downtown after dark,” Carmichael said. “We’re getting shops to stay open later, and I think as we approach Christmas and the holiday season, that will be very important.

When people get off work, they can go downtown and shop local, so we’re trying to encourage that.”

Carmichael said the after hours events like Thursdays are vital for downtown, and help change the view that many people have of downtown.

“I think it’s important for perception, because some people think that it’s not safe downtown after dark, when in fact it is safe,” Carmichael said. “There’s a police presence down there, and we have a police presence for our events.”

Carmichael said as more Downtown After Dark events happen, he hopes more and more people will come out and turn the ideas of downtown into positive ones.

“When you have a good number of good people down there, it’s less likely for something bad to happen, and we just want to get that point across,” Carmichael said. “We want to change that perception so businesses can do well and new businesses can open and some of these empty businesses can be filled.”

Morgan said after the open mic Thursday, he hopes that Charlie’s Place can continue having events and attracting more people from the community to attend.

“We’re already talking about doing something once a month,” Morgan said.

“It sometimes gets people that don’t normally come in, it gives them a new idea about what’s going on and then hopefully they’ll just keep coming back.”