A group of business owners trying to legalize Sunday alcohol sales in unincorporated Franklin County is reassessing its approach.
Dewey Patton, event organizer at Mulberry Mountain, said he and owners of other establishments already licensed to sell alcohol on weekdays and Saturdays had asked to address the Quorum Court about Sunday sales.
Mulberry Mountain, about 20 miles north of Ozark on Arkansas 23, is a 650-acre event site that hosts several large outdoor music festivals each year including Wakarusa and Harvest Festival.
Patton said he hoped to persuade the Quorum Court to add the question of Sunday alcohol sales, as well as the sale of liquor by the drink in unincorporated Franklin County, to the general election ballot in November.
“Liquor by the drink” refers to any mixed drink or straight spirit, such as vodka or rum, served in an opencontainer for on-premises consumption.
The item was added to the agenda for the Quorum Court’s meeting at 7 p.m. today in Charleston, but after further researching the matter, Patton withdrew his request. According to Arkansas Code Annotated 3-3-210, the issue of Sunday alcohol sales must be petition-driven.
Patton said that while allowing Sunday alcohol sales at Mulberry Mountain would probably only marginally increase sales of beer and wine at festival events, the sale of liquor by the drink would open up an entirely new stream of sponsorship revenue.
“Currently, we can only serve beer and wine, so it wouldn’t make any sense for us to get any kind of spirits-type sponsor, such as Jack Daniels, for instance, with any event we did out there,” Patton said. “We want to have all options on the table to pursue sponsorships and involvement in the events.”
Michael Langley, director of administration for the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Division, said that even in wet Arkansas counties - 37 of the state’s 75 counties are dry - Sunday alcohol sales are rare.
“There are no counties with Sunday liquor sales, only a few communities have them,” Langley said.
Most of the municipalities that allow Sunday alcohol sales - Langley said he knows of “only six or seven of them” - are in Northwest Arkansas. Two of them, Ozark and Altus, are inside Franklin County. The others include Springdale, Eureka Springs, Norfork and Tontitown.
Langley said that 48 establishments in Franklin County hold active retail alcohol or private club permits; 34 of those establishments hold retail beer sale permits.
Ozark Mayor Carol Sneath said that since Sunday alcohol sales within Ozark’s city limits passed in the 2012 general election, there had not been a noticeable impact on the city’s economy. Tax revenue from the state’s four alcohol-related sales taxes, including a 1 percent beer excise tax, a 3 percent liquor tax on spirits and wine sold for off-premises consumption, and two mixed-drink taxes of 4 percent and 10 percent each, is collected by the state and then redistributed to all 75 counties, regardless of whether they are wet or dry.
Although the Franklin County Quorum Court could put the issue of allowing liquor by the drink on November’s ballot, Patton said he chose to withdraw that issue from the agenda as well because it wouldn’t benefit some of the other business owners he was working with on the Sunday liquor sales issue.
“Liquor by the drink could be put on ballot by Quorum Court, but we’re working with a team of businesses, and we don’t want to break that unity,” Patton said. “We want it to be a team effort.”
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 04/10/2014