Restaurant liquor

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It will probably be February

before Fayetteville restaurants can start serving liquor.

City Council had planned to

approve amendments to its beer and wine laws to include sales of liquor

workshop meeting to re-post the item for first reading at its first meeting

in January. That means action probably won't come until the second meeting

in January, possibly later.

Staff needs more time to make

sure that new provisions in the ordinance don't unfairly burden stores

that currently sell beer and wine.

"I don't want to make

the people who already have licenses to sell beer and wine to be in violation

of the ordinance," said Councilman Larry Dell during last week's

workshop.

Requirements that stores selling

alcohol be a minimum distance away from residences might do that, council

members said. The rules would apply to liquor by the drink as well as

packaged beer and wine sales, and some local convenience and grocery stores

may be close enough to homes to violate the provision, council members

fear.

Council has agreed to charge

$5,000 for liquor pouring licenses, in addition to separate $1,000 fees

for beer and wine. Restaurants serving all three types of alcohol would

pay $7,000 a year.

City Manager Joe Morton said

Monday night that work is progressing on answering council's concerns

about distance requirements, but not finished yet.

Staff does have a handle on

answers to questions about how large a convenience store should be in

order to apply for a beer and wine license, and how much of a large super

store should be devoted to groceries in order to qualify for a beer and

wine license.

Convenience stores should be

at least 1,000 square feet, and super stores like Wal-Mart should devote

at least 20 percent of their floor space to groceries if they want to

sell beer and wine, Morton said.