No Sunday Sales Vote in DeKalb
Decatur Metro | November 4, 2011
Many Decatur residents are probably already pre-gaming for next week’s “Liquor Vote Tuesday”. But across the city line in unincorp-ed DeKalb, residents will remain silent on the issue. That’s right, there won’t be a Sunday liquor sales vote in DeKalb.
Rep. Mike Jacobs points this out on his website…
Conspicuously absent from the countywide ballot in DeKalb County is a referendum to allow Sunday sales of alcohol. I supported Senate Bill 10 (click for information), the legislation that enables local communities to decide this issue via public referendum.
Our neighboring cities of Chamblee, Dunwoody, Sandy Springs, and Atlanta will be voting on this question next Tuesday. If you are in unincorporated DeKalb, however, the county has yet to do anything regarding Sunday sales.
That means that regular Decatur haunts outside the city limits like Publix, Decatur Package Store, and Fiesta, will all refrain from alcohol selling on Sundays for the foreseeable future. Which means that regardless of how Decatur votes on Tuesday, the only local option for picking up hard liquor on Sunday will continue to be your neighbor’s poorly concealed underground hooch cellar.
Photo courtesy of Wikipedia
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Avondale Estates is voting on it, from what I understand.
We are! I’m hoping it will pass in AE and Decatur.
HOW DID THIS HAPPEN???????!!!!!!!
Can places like Oakhurst Market, Little Kroger, or Sawicki’s sell liquor on Sundays if Decatur passes Sunday alcohol sales? That may bring Sunday business to those establishments.
Well, no one in Decatur city sells liquor. And Sawicki’s doesn’t sell any alcohol.
But yes, if Decatur passes it, Oakhurst Market and Little Kroger can sell beer and wine.
I’m assuming Ale Yeah! will open on Sundays? Also, is Green’s on Ponce in Atlanta or unincorporated?
If you mean Green’s on Ponce near the old Sears building, it is firmly in Atlanta.
Why does no one in City of Decatur sell liquor? (I know this is probably a dumb question that everyone but me knows the answer to…..)
I think there’s an ordinance against liquor stores. And apparently reason as well.
Here is the language for the referendum Tuesday:
“Shall the governing authority of the City of Decatur, Georgia be authorized to permit and regulate package sales by retailers of malt beverages, wine and distilled spirits on Sundays between the hours of 12:30 p.m. and 11:30 p.m.?”
Is there a starting time for other days of the week? Or is the 12:30 p.m. start time just for Sunday? Just can’t shake those blue laws, eh, Georgia?
My husband’s childhood memories include his dad stopping at the liquor store after church every Sunday (in FL) and the whole family having to wait around in the parking lot until the store opened at 12:30, just because their church started a little early. Good times.
The ordinance from my reading does not outright prohibit liquor sales, but requires that if you sell alcoholic beverages at retail that at least 50% of the floor space be dedicated to food or food related produces such as cooking utensils. This makes sense if you are a supermarket or a convenience store that sells beer/wine, but I’ve never seen a liquor store that carries much food items.
This is the reason that Sherlocks/Cooks Warehouse is in the same store from what I understand. 50% to beer/wine (Sherlocks) and 50% to cooking products.
This is just outright stupidity, in my opinion, and you would think that our City Commissioners would be enlightened enough to overturn this law.
Actually that provision (50-50) is just dealing with beer and wine. There is another chapter dealing specifically with liquor and nothing would seem to prohibit it so long as it is in a commercial district and not within a certain distance (mostly 100 yards) from a residence, library, church, school, MARTA station, etc.
Here is the link: http://search.municode.com/html/12110/level3/PTIIICOOR_CH6ALBE_ARTIIIDISP.html
Note that the retail sale of liquor store must be “devoted exclusively to the retail sale of distilled spirits,” so a grocery or convenience store could not sell liquor.
So, assuming there is a location that could meet the requirements, I don’t know why there is not a liquor store in Decatur. This would seem to be an opportunity here.
Wouldn’t that distance requirement make it unworkable? Is there anywhere in City of Decatur that is that far from a residence, library, church, school, or a MARTA station? The city is chock full of all of those!
I don’t know. 100 yards is about half a block. Seems like there would be possible locations.
There are package stores in Decatur. One on Scott and another on Clairemont, both inside the Decatur city limits.
Nope.
As a resident of Scottdale, I think this is absolute crap.
I think I see a business opportunity in Decatur for an enterprising soul…
Liquor store. Good in good times and bad. Totally recession proof.
But often robbed. You have to have a gun behind the cash register. My grandfather worked in one in his retirement for a little while. Even then, in a place long ago and far away where everyone knew everybody, it wasn’t a safe occupation.
Green’s on Ponce is City of Atlanta.
Elections cost a lot of money to hold and counties don’t usually hold elections in odd years, so most of them are waiting until next year – when they will likely have other items on the ballot – to hold the referendum.
Unincorporated DeKalb did vote today though… the only item on the ballot was SPLOST funding.
Guess our tax dollars will be welcomed elsewhere!
There are three liquor stores on Moreland inside the City of Atlanta, within a few miles of Decatur, that would be able to sell liquor on Sunday’s if the referendum passes in Atlanta:
Tower East (Moreland and Memorial)
Moreland Package Store (Moreland at Wylie)
Little Five Points Liquor Store (next to Junkman’s Daughter)
This will probably pass handily in Decatur (fingers cross, and feet ready to march to the polls). As for Atlanta, I’m not so sure. It’s a Democratic town to be sure but you can’t forget there are still socially conservative churches within the city, and generally social conservatives (and conservatives in general, though the fiscal ones seem to have no problem with Sunday sales) are more motivated to vote in off-year elections.
I had lunch with several liberal and libertarian city of Atlanta residents today and they had no clue that the referendum was happening next week until I told them about it. They all said they’d vote for it, but until I mentioned something, they had no plans to vote.
Now, for the next electoral mystery… will the E-SPLOST pass?
I think it will pass in Atlanta – maybe not as high of a percentage as Decatur – but there has really been no organized opposition to it. As far as the black churches, they might be socially conservative, but they do not get their marching orders from the Christian Coalition, who is the only organized group that is opposed to it.
The only real scientific poll I have seen on the issue was in Savannah (they have a mayor’s race there too) where 66% of Savannah voters said they’d vote yes on Sunday sales.
http://savannahnow.com/news/2011-11-04/poll-voters-edna-jackson-savannah-mayor-sunday-alcohol-sales#.TrQqAkNKO4A
Fair point, though any thing could happen. I’m curious to see which hamlets in Georgia actually reject Sunday sales.
Way to leave a pile on money on the table Dekalb.
exactly
I took a second look at the pictire on this thread and in one shot DM manages to photograph all the cheapest liquors available. That is some sorry stuff on those shelves.
Dekalb is not voting on the referendum because you need to have a scheduled election on the calendar to add the referendum for a vote. My understanding is that you cannot have the referendum as the sole item on the ballot. So, a lot of the cities have odd year elections and can add the Sunday sales question to the ballot but not Dekalb. Not a big deal for me since I live close enough to Decatur and Avondale Estates. More of a bummer for grocery stores, package stores and other shops in unincorporated Dekalb.
I think you can hold a special election if necessary or desired — but it costs money to hold elections, and this would be an extra expense for DeKalb. I believe the same logic was used in unincorporated Cobb County.
This can’t be true because Atlanta had nothing else on the ballot this year and decided to hold the referendum. Same thing in Sandy Springs, I think, because they were fighting with Fulton County about the costs.
Not to mention that unicorporated Dekalb IS holding an election on Tuesday. Everyone in Dekalb County will be voting on the education SPLOST, so they could have easily put Sunday sales on the ballot.
Once again, it appears that Dekalb County was asleep at the wheel.
So… on the other hand, maybe they are not asleep at the wheel.
what do you expect? we’re talking about dekalb. why do something the people want, when you can screw them over as usual?
I checked http://onemap.decaturga.com/ and it appears that the City limits are within a few feet of the Yee Package store on College Ave. Close no cigar.
Personally I am much less concerned about being able to buy liquor on Sundays vs wine and beer. For me it comes down to running out for that bottle of wine for dinner or some beer and not having to overbuy on Saturday. I am looking on the bright side of things with this issue considering that The Beer Growler and Ale Yeah should be open as well as the wonderful Candler Park Market which sells a great selection of both beer and wine. I talked briefly with the guy at The Little Wine Shop in Avondale about Sunday sales and he said they would not be open on Sunday, so that kinda sucks but at least there are a few good places close by that should be selling. One very sad thing I am now realizing with all the specifics coming out about this vote is that Your Dekalb Farmer’s Market, I am guessing will not be able to sell, and that for me is a very big disappointment.
What it will most certainly do, however, is force Dekalb’s hand in the next election cycle. With all of the neighboring jurisdictions able to sell on Sunday’s, the grocers and convenience store owners will most certainly force a vote due to their losses.
That makes sense – I hope you are right.
One place I totally forgot while making my last post is that Sherlock’s in The Cooks Warehouse will of course be selling beer and wine on Sundays. Can’t believe I forgot about them – love shopping there.
We went to the Beer Growler yesterday & they said that they had already written a schedule for Sundays–guess they’re anticipating the referendum to pass! They are planning on noon-5pm on Sundays.
+10 – the Beer Growler will be slammed on Sundays!
Interesting. I spoke with one of the Ale Yeah guys and they said while they would be open on Sundays they expected no additional business over the course of the week – basically that any sales on Sunday would have occurred on Friday or Saturday anyway. I guess time will tell.
I’m just skeptical about that. Many times Sundays are the only time I have for a non-essential trip to a place like Cooks/Sherlocks, and, soon I hope, Ale Yeah. I’m sure that’s true for others as well. If it is true that overall sales don’t change, then why not close on Mondays or Tuesdays, when fewer people are out shopping anyway?
I am not a retailer so this is just a guess. I suspect that if you own a shop you don’t want to give your customers a reason to go elsewhere as it might become a habit with them. So if your competition is open you want to be open as well.
At the DeKalb Board of Commissioners next meeting on Tuesday they will discuss putting a Sunday sales vote on the ballot along with the presidential primary on March 6, 2012.
Good to hear – thanks Jay!
WHAT THE HELL?!?!?!?! This is the first issue coming up that anyone I know has cared about in the least in recent memory, and we don’t even get to vote on it?????? Who is the public official that needs to be lynched?????
I got it now. If they put liquor sales on the ballot, people would come out to vote, and would vote AGAINST the tax levy. Leaving it off the ballot, means most people will not vote, and only those who really want the levy will come out to vote.
I voted at Cross Keys and live right down the street. I thought that was City of Atl. I can’t understand why sunday sales wasn’t on the ballot for me, but I was told it would be on 3/6/12. I am wondering if Green’s on Buford Hwy will now be allowed to sell on Sundays…
Do you get a tax bill from City of Atlanta? Of course, if you are renting you wouldn’t know, but you would probably know if you voted for Mayor and Council in Atlanta before.
Not sure, but I think that Green’s is in unincorporated DeKalb, so not yet. Go north a bit to Chamblee or Doraville (great Tower store there).
Of course, the Tower package store in Buckhead is probably more convenient for you.