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Political Notes -- Sunday package sales move forward

Capitol Impact

by Tom Crawford on 3/12/2008

The legalization of Sunday package sales of alcohol moved an important step closer to reality Wednesday as a House committee added that provision to a bill allowing beer and wine sales in Gwinnett County’s new baseball stadium.

SB 454 was approved by the Regulated Industries Committee and likely will get a floor vote next week in the House of Representatives. If the House approves SB 454, the Senate would then be asked to agree to the changes in the original bill.

As amended by the committee chairman, Rep. Roger Williams (R-Dalton), SB 454 would authorize cities and counties that already allow the sale of beer, wine or liquor to call a referendum on the question of allowing Sunday sales in grocery and package stores. Those sales would be legalized if a majority of the referendum voters approve them.

City and county governments would not be required to call a referendum. If Sunday package sales are legalized, retail outlets would still have the option to sell alcohol or not on Sundays.

Sen. Renee Unterman (R-Buford), the author of the original version of SB 454, opposed the Sunday sales amendment and angrily charged that she had been “betrayed” by industry lobbyists. She also contended that Gov. Sonny Perdue would veto the bill if it included the Sunday sales provision.

“I guess I must be the stupidest person in the room,” Unterman said after Williams amended her bill. “I did not know there would be an amendment. It puts me in a terrible, terrible position. I have to say, I feel very betrayed by the lobbyist community.”

“I’m really surprised you didn’t know there was an amendment coming,” said Rep. Allen Freeman (R-Macon). “I think everybody in the capitol knew.”

Freeman accused Unterman of being a hypocrite for supporting sales of alcohol at the Gwinnett stadium for an Atlanta Braves farm team, but opposing the concept of Sunday package sales.

“Your hypocrisy is unconscionable to me,” Freeman said. “You support Sunday sales only when it’s favorable to you. You want me to support you, but you don’t want to support me.”

“Y’all are the ones who are mixing the two issues,” Unterman shot back.

“I’ve been told by the governor he’s going to veto it,” Unterman added. “In an election year, why do you want to go out on a limb, unless you want to throw it in the governor’s face? Why go through all this when the governor is completely saying he’ll veto this?”

Williams said that when he talked to governor’s office about the bill several weeks ago, Perdue’s aides told him “they had concerns about the amendment; they said they may have problems,” but the governor has not told him directly that he would veto the bill.

The committee action was the most significant breakthrough in two years on the Sunday package sales issue in Georgia, which is one of only three states that still prohibits such sales.

A Sunday sales bill made it out of committee in the Senate last year but did not get a floor vote. Sunday package sales supporters used a bill that had already been passed by the Senate earlier this session as the vehicle for their amendment.