Take one down, pass it around…

I hope you enjoyed last week’s Council meeting as much as I did. For those who missed it, it was a pretty good show with at least a directed effort by the City Parish to correct the matter of the dysfunctional Alsen-St. Irma Lee Volunteer Fire Department (VFD) Board. Councilman “Bones” Addison, in whose district the Alsen community is situated, was absent for the meeting (again). The Council eventually adopted a resolution for the current VFD Board to meet with the folks seeking change and come back in 30 days with a recommendation. With that out of the way, it’s time to talk liquor! I’d normally leave this to Jay Ducote over at Bite & Booze, but this one ended up in my wheel house today.

That’s right; the next drama-laden issue for the Council to consider is the Sunday restriction on selling alcohol (as well as some other stuff, but more on that in a sec). For anyone who has ever attempted to enjoy a Bloody Mary on a Sunday morning or stock up the liquor cabinet before your early afternoon football party, you’ve likely run afoul of Baton Rouge’s notorious blue laws. The term “blue law” is a colloquialism that generally refers to a law restricting commerce in some fashion in deference to religious tradition. For instance, many Christians view Sunday as a day of rest. Because of that, some businesses in Baton Rouge face restricted hours of operation (car dealerships) and/or limits to what kind of commerce they can conduct (restaurants selling or serving alcohol/beer during certain hours).

So what’s changing? Councilwoman Alison Gary is seeking to do away with East Baton Rouge Parish’s alcohol blue laws. She gave me the simplest explanation possible: “it would make Sunday the same as any other day of the week in terms of alcohol sales.” The submitted proposals do just that, plus fix a few more things which we’ll take a look at below. Here we go:

1) It’s 5 O’ Clock Somewhere: The meat of the matter. Whole swathes of the original ordinance are being deleted to accomplish one simple goal: making Sunday just like any other day for the purposes of drinking. The amount that has to be cut is truly indicative of how unnecessarily complicated our alcohol laws are simply for the goal of restricting sales of alcohol on Sunday AM and treating restaurants like the red-headed stepchildren of the alcohol sales world. I have copies of both the marked up original regulation and the final ordinance if enacted as proposed. Final tally: 25 pages to 21 pages. That should tell you something.

2) Bye-Bye Class R: I’m not going to say this was snuck in, but it’s a little different than the blue law thing. Under current regulations, restaurants that want to serve alcohol not only have to apply for the standard Class A alcohol permit (what bars have), but they also have to acquire a Class R permit. The Class R permit further restricts these businesses and their activities. Stipulations include serving food on all days of operation, 60% of sales have to be from food/non-alcoholic beverages, etc. I know what some of you are thinking. No rules! Anarchy! Well, keep your shirt on… remember that we live in both a Parish AND a State (and Country, but the Feds already 21st Amended that concept out of existence). As a result, restaurants still have to secure a license from Louisiana Alcohol and Tobacco Control, which maintains certain restrictions. The biggest difference is that restaurants will only have to maintain a 50-50 food/alcohol ratio to stay in good graces as opposed to the current Parish ordained 60-40 split.

3) No Liquor For You!: There may be one unintended consequence whereby servers and bartenders in restaurants will no longer be able to drink in their place of employment, but that law may have been in place anyway. We’ll have to watch to see how that plays out.

…and that’s basically what the proposal does. Overall, it’s is pretty simple and straightforward. Statistically speaking, it would mean that alcohol would be available for sale 83% of the hours in a week as opposed to 80% under our current laws. A 3% difference doesn’t sound like much to me, what about you?

If you think these laws are outdated (like I do), get out and make your voice heard. Here are three easy opportunities: 1) the proposal will be heard at the Finance and Executive Committee meeting this week at 3PM on Wednesday October 3rd at City Hall and it is open for a public hearing; 2) you can always email the Metro Council ([email protected]); and 3) the Main Event (where the Council can vote it up or down) will be held on Wednesday, October 10th starting at 4PM at City Hall in Downtown Baton Rouge and features a public hearing. Get some friends together and show up to support your Bloody Mary habit!

If you have an argument in favor of keeping the laws as is, feel free to leave a comment below and I’ll be glad to cover it next week. See you then!

P.S. If you want to read the documents yourself, I’ve got both the red line (visible edit) and final versions of the main ordinance posted to my Scribd account, just follow the links. I apologize about the red-line version, that’s how I received it.