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Richmond council gives thumbs-down to Sunday beer sales

September 30th, 2009 Posted in Opinion

By Dan Fawson

RICHMOND — Sundays will remain sober, for now.

After polling citizens and consulting county law enforcement, the City Council voted against moving forward on a motion to change the city’s policy regarding alcohol sales on Sunday.

A representative from the Maverik County Store located on the corner of 200 South and Main Street had asked the council at the Aug. 18 meeting to allow the store to sell alcohol on Sundays. A deputy from the Cache County Sheriff’s Office attend the Tuesday evening meeting and presented statistics documenting a rise in DUI’s after Maverik began selling alcohol in October 2007. The majority of city council members said the responses they received from citizens were generally not in favor of changing the alcohol policy.

Councilman Jeff Young said many of the citizens he questioned were worried about the city’s slow progression from no alcohol sales, to its current policy of no alcohol sales after 7 p.m., and now to this proposal, with had many posing the question, “What’s next?”

Richmond native Sgt. Dave DeGasser of the sheriff’s office also appeared before the council in opposition to the proposal.

“I feel like people would stop here (Richmond), buy beer, and not necessarily leave,” DeGasser said.

Mayor Mike Hall echoed DeGasser’s worries, saying, “I, too, don’t want to see Richmond be the place on the north side of the valley for people to buy beer.”

Councilman Keith Ward said that while he understood the potential financial benefit Sunday beer sales would provide the store, he also knows Maverik understood when it came to Richmond that it was not to sell alcohol on Sundays.

In other business, the council voted to approve a business license for Carlos Martinez’ “Martinez Auto Repair,” which will be located on the vacant lot directly east of Maverik, formerly Dee’s Texaco. The license will have a conditional use amendment prohibiting more than 13 cars parked on the premises at one time, in accordance with fire codes, and will also require Martinez to first meet a number of city and building codes.

Martinez, who is currently renting the property, was glad to be given permission to move forward in the process. “We are paying on the building, right now,” he said, “so we would want to get it going as soon as possible.”

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  1. 5 Responses to “Richmond council gives thumbs-down to Sunday beer sales”

  2. By Siding on Oct 1, 2009

    I feel like this represents the height of hypocrisy. If it’s OK to sell beer, or any other alcoholic beverage, on any other day, why not Sunday. To me this makes no sense.

  3. By Personal Licence on Oct 14, 2009

    That is due to the fact that the licensing law sufficiently addresses all needs.

  4. By NCPLH on Oct 14, 2009

    Licensing laws will be ammended again soon as in 2003 there was only partial statistics available.

  5. By esl on Nov 23, 2009

    Controlling sunday beer sales could be counter productive.

  6. By seattle dui lawyer on Jan 7, 2010

    That sounds like a good way to control weekend drinking.

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