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SAVANNAH, GA (WTOC) -  From no smoking to no alcohol sales on Sundays for liquor, convenience and grocery stores, laws come and some may go.

It's a huge issue facing Georgia state lawmakers this week as Sunday sales are debated in the capital. Discussion began in Atlanta Monday.

Right now, the focus is on grocery stores and convenience stores being allowed to sell beer and wine on Sunday.  While religious leaders have rallied the troops against the idea, they have an unlikely ally: liquor store owners.

You might think a liquor store owner would say yes to Sunday sales.

"I am totally against it," Paul Ganem told WTOC.

Not Ganem. His family has owned Johnnie Ganem's liquor store in Savannah since 1942. He says the idea of possibly selling beer and wine on a Sunday is a bad one.

"Would you want to work on your day off?" Ganem asked. "We work six days a week. Sunday is our day off."

"I say leave it alone. I don't think we need it," Pastor Allan Bosson of the Southside Baptist Church told WTOC.

Most church leaders agree. Bosson thinks making alcohol even more available, especially on Sundays, is just asking for trouble. He points to accidents, DUIs and and crime.

"We got a problem now. What are we going to do, increase the problem?" Bossen said

Grocery store and convenience store owners say they are already open, why not be allowed to sell beer? Bosson thinks it's a flimsy excuse to benefit the alcohol industry and hopes lawmakers keep Sunday dry.

"I cannot believe people who say they are concerned with young people would be in support of something like this. It just doesn't make any sense at all," he said.

"I just don't feel it is necessary to open on a Sunday," Ganem said.

Ganem says the Georgia Alcohol Business Association is trying to tag hard liquor to the beer and wine Sunday sales legislation, hoping it will kill the bill. But if it backfires?

"If I have to open, I will. I hope it never comes to that," Ganem said.

You can buy beer, wine and liquor at restaurants on a Sunday, but nowhere else. Senate Bill 454 calling to end Sunday sales is being pushed by other business groups. Gov. Sonny Perdue has spoken out against the bill.

The session is expected to end on Friday. 

Reported by: Don Logana, dlogana@wtoc.com