The Michigan Liquor Control Commission (LCC) has issued notice to communities about Sunday morning liquor control sales. As you know, the Legislature passed a new law allowing sales of alcohol (on-premise and off-premise) between the hours of 7 am and noon on Sundays. This was previously prohibited. Any licensee that would like to sell on Sunday morning needs a Sunday Morning Sales permit.
The intent of the law was to allow LCC to issue Sunday morning permits for businesses who have licenses, unless the local unit prohibits issuance of these new permits (local control). The language in the final Act was in error, though, because it inadvertently requires communities to prohibit all Sunday sales instead of just Sunday morning. LCC is going to allow locals to prohibit Sunday morning sales, though. They have the ability to do this because of legal precedent dealing with constitutional powers granted to them. We also expect the Legislature to pass a technical fix to this law in January.
LCC sent a letter to all cities, villages, townships and counties telling them that Sunday morning liquor permits will start to be issued on December 16th. Any community that wishes to prohibit these permits from being issued should contact LCC before December 16th. Communities that contact LCC before that can either tell LCC that they are going to prohibit these permits, or can ask LCC for more time to make the decision. Communities can still prohibit issuance of these new permits after December 16th under the law, but it is unclear what will happen to the permits for the businesses that already have them. LCC has said that they could revoke the permits in those communities, but there is always the possibility of lawsuits by those businesses because they have already paid and been issued the permit.
You should receive the letter in the mail, but you can also review the letter on the LCC website or by clicking here:
http://www.michigan.gov/documents/dleg/Notification_on_Sunday_Sales_with_app_339811_7.pdf
One final note – at the Liquor Control meeting yesterday, one attorney said that he is going to advise his clients that they can start serving liquor immediately because the legislation took effect on December 1st and claimed that Liquor Control does not have the power to delay issuance of permits. The Assistant Attorney General for Liquor Control disagreed with that interpretation of the law, and the Liquor Control Commissioners said that any business selling on Sunday morning without a permit will be in violation of the law and the Liquor Code. So be aware that this could be happening in your community!
If you have any questions, you can contact liquor control as per the above letter or you can contact me and I will do my best to answer your questions!
Andy Schor is the Assistant Director of State Affairs for the Michigan Municipal League. Contact him at (517) 908-0300 or by email at aschor@mml.org.
4ef4e436-9945-49c5-b908-2a443cbe2841|0|.0
