When it comes to Senate Bill 16, offering Georgia communities an opportunity to allow Sunday alcohol sales, the question is: Will the Senate vote on the substance of the bill or the myths? Our country and state are changing, not always in positive ways. So many people look around at the deterioration of values and institutions that are the foundation of our society and feel helpless or even angry at the attacks on the things we hold dear.
Perhaps no event embodied this more than the attacks on the Rev. Rick Warren, castigated for his role in Barack Obama’s inauguration for simply sharing the traditional scriptural view that marriage is for one man and one woman. As an elder in my church, I share the feelings these events are causing.
It is against this backdrop that SB 16 is being considered. Having worked on this issue for a couple of years now, I have come to understand that many who oppose SB 16 are projecting on this issue their understandable frustrations with other events in our society, and in the process have contorted this bill far beyond its actual content.
The reality of SB 16 is so straightforward that, for those who may not have read the bill, it is perhaps shockingly different from the image of the bill presented by both its opponents and the media. SB 16 does one simple thing: It says the state of Georgia will allow voters to control alcohol sales in retail establishments (i.e. grocery stores and convenience outlets) in the same way local voters control every other area of alcohol sales in their counties and cities.
That is all that SB 16 does. It falls directly in line with the time-honored Southern tradition that allows county and city voters to determine how dry their county is going to be, something that Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and almost every other state already allows.
Of course, my fellow Christians are not the only ones who have misunderstood or misrepresented this bill. Our friends in the media have done the same because, to be frank, nothing sells newspapers like a headline saying: “Sunday liquor sales on tap again in the Legislature.” These headlines leave the impression that SB 16 would mandate Sunday sales in Georgia. If I had not worked this issue for two years, and knew nothing more than what the newspaper headlines say about this bill, I would probably share the alarm of some faith-based voters.
SB 16 has continued to gain momentum —- it has almost twice the number of co-sponsors this year than last year —- because over time the bill’s simplicity is outweighing the distortions presented about it. In addition, since lawmakers have chosen to pass mandated Sunday sales in places such as the Gwinnett Braves stadium, the obvious contradiction in not allowing local control of retail sales is becoming harder to defend.
Retailers are Georgia’s largest employer. They do not want a Gwinnett stadium-style, state-mandated Sunday sales bill. They want to be treated fairly and for the General Assembly to end the unique state-level ban on retail sales and allow local control of retail sales in the same way we allow local control of every other area of alcohol policy. If the Georgia Senate votes the reality of SB 16, local control will prevail.
> Jim Tudor is president of the Georgia Association of Convenience Stores.
