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Sunday sales at grocery stores clears House panel

Associated Press

ATLANTA --

A state House committee on Wednesday revived a stalled effort to permit Sunday alcohol sales at grocery and convenience stores, ignoring pleas from church leaders who say it will sully the Sabbath.

At a packed Capitol hearing, the House Regulated Industries Committee attached the Sunday sales measure to a Senate bill allowing a minor league baseball stadium in suburban Atlanta to serve beer at Sunday games. They then passed the retooled bill unanimously.

The legislation would give local communities the option to offer Sunday sales at grocery and convenience stores from 12:30 to 11:30 p.m. But they could so if only if local voters approved.

"I think the good Lord made us all with the capacity of free will," said committee chairman Roger Williams, R-Dalton, who pushed the amendment through.

Sunday sales supporters have cast it as an issue of local control and fairness. Restaurants in many communities may already serve drinks on Sunday. Business leaders say consumers have been clamoring for the change at the checkout line. Sunday is now the second busiest shopping day at grocery stores, which say they are losing millions of dollars in sales.

Opponents said there are already ample opportunities for Georgians to purchase alcohol six days a week.

"Will our communities be healthier and safer if we make more alcohol available? That's the bottom line," said Mike Griffin, a Baptist pastor speaking for the Georgia Christian Coalition.

Tom Rush, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Social Circle, went a step further.

"If we sell more alcohol people are going to die," he predicted.

The measure could reach the full House as early as next week.

Rep. Earl Ehrhart, who chairs the committee that sets the voting schedule, said he has heard no pushback from House members.

"I'm looking forward to putting it up for a vote," said Ehrhart, R-Powder Springs.

Sen. Renee Unterman, the sponsor of the original stadium bill that has already passed the Senate, protested the inclusion of the grocery store measure on Wednesday. She said it will kill her bill.

"It puts me in a terrible, terrible position," she said.

Unterman said she only wanted to permit Sunday beer sales at the stadium being built in her Gwinnett County district to house a farm team for the Atlanta Braves.

That drew a rebuke from one member of the House panel she was addressing.

"The hypocrisy of what you just said is just unbelievable and unconscionable to me," fired back Rep. Allen Freeman, R-Macon.

He accused her of being self serving.

"You support Sunday sales because it's good for you," he said.

Georgia is one of just three states that do not allow stores to sell any kind of alcohol on Sundays. The other two are Connecticut and Indiana.

Grocery and convenience stores began pushing last year to change the law. But a bill that would do so has been bottled up in the Senate, unable to make it out of committee.

The bill is apparently headed to a vote on the House floor and must also pass the Senate.

It faces an uphill climb with Gov. Sonny Perdue, a teetotaler who is cool to the idea of expanding alcohol sales in the state.

"I think it will take a lot of persuasion to get my vote," Perdue told reporters last year.

Unterman predicted he would veto the bill if it makes it through the Legislature.

"It's a rocky road that we're going down," she warned.