Folks, I know there has been tremendous confusion over Sunday morning liquor sales and whether communities have to opt-out for just the morning or all day. I just got off the phone with both the Chair of the Liquor Control Commission (Nida Samona) and the legislative director for Liquor Control (Julie Wendt) and they both told me that the Liquor Commission will honor whatever the community passes.  If it is a Sunday morning prohibition, that will be honored and no permits will be issued.  If it is all day Sunday, that will be honored and no permits will be issued.

Communities should send their prohibition by fax to liquor control at either of the following fax numbers:

517 322-5377 licensing administration

517 322-6137 licensing

 

I know that there were comments made in Gongwer and MIRS that are counter to this, but I was told that these comments were incorrect or taken out of context.  So, if you have a Sunday morning prohibition or want to continue the prohibition on Sunday morning only, you can send that resolution to liquor control and they will honor it.

 

Also, this was published in the MIRS Capitol Newsletter today…

 

LCC Now Doing Early Sunday Opt Outs - Apparently somebody just hiccupped. The state Liquor Control Commission (LCC) will now let local communities opt-out of the new law allowing morning early Sunday alcoholic beverage sales, without insisting that they opt-out of all Sunday alcoholic beverage sales. The new policy came after considerable confusion and flak over LCC's actions regarding how local communities can employ the opt-out portion of the new law that allows Sunday morning alcoholic beverage sales (See "No Opt-Out For Sunday Morning Alcohol Sales,"12/08/10). It appears that the operative phrase today on the topic is "legislative intent." The LCC has apparently decided to go the legislative intent of the bill (HB 6224), rather than how the bill was actually written.  "It's clear the intent of the legislature and governor was to allow early Sunday sales with an opt-out for local governments," LCC chairwoman Nida SAMONA told MIRS via telephone today.  That was not what local community leaders had been hearing as recently as earlier this week and it is not what had been posted on the LLC website. Up until the past 36 hours the word from the LCC was that local communities could only opt out if they chose to end all Sunday alcoholic beverage and the same explanation was on the website Tuesday.  "What they (the LCC official) told me Monday was that they would accept our resolution to have us on record as one of the communities that want to opt out so we'd be ready if the legislature changed the law," Mulliken Village President Rob PIERCEFIELD told MIRS today. "We also have a letter they sent us."

 

 

Below is a resolution that the Village of New Lothrop provided to Liquor Control. It says that they want to opt-out of Sunday morning sales.  Liquor Control is not only honoring this resolution, they sent to me to provide to our members as a sample resolution.  So feel free to use this as a sample if you are interested.

 

Liquor Control will also be working with us to get the law clarified early next year so that there is no further confusion. So far 5 communities and 2 counties are on the opt-out list.  You can add your community to the opt-out list at any time, but permits will start to be issued on December 16th.  If you would like independent confirmation of this information, you can contact Julie Wendt at 517 322-1408. As always, please call me with questions.  I am in Ann Arbor today, so you can get me by cell at 517 256-3395.

 

  Andy

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.or

sample Resolution.pdf (54.23 kb)

 

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