NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- From carding anyone buying beer, to debating the value of allowing beer and wine sales, alcohol laws may be in for some changes in cities and states across the country. CSP Daily News highlights some pending issues:
In Tennessee, convenience store manager Mike Thorpe knows that asking for ID from a 70-year-old who wants to buy beer might be a little ridiculous. But under a bill that unanimously passed the Tennessee Senate on Thursday, Thorpe and other convenience store workers would have to ask for identification from everyone, no matter how old they [image-nocss] appear. If that's the law, then that's it, Thorpe told the Associated Press.If approved, the bill would make Tennessee the first state to make universal carding mandatory at convenience stores, according to the national advocacy group Mothers Against Drunk Driving. A House committee will consider the bill this week.
The bill's sponsor, Sen. Joe Haynes, said he wants to prevent store clerks from selling beer to anyone underage. The legislation does not apply to hard liquor or to the sale of alcohol in restaurants.
Convenience markets are just not doing their job, said Haynes. Because it's not universal, they think they can just look at someone and determine if they're 21.
Before the 30-0 vote, lawmakers debated for nearly two hours. To make me or any one of us in this room have to show his or her ID to buy beer is ludicrous, said Sen. Steve Cohen, who said he missed the vote because he had to catch a flight back to his Memphis district.
Thorpe said that his cashiers are required to card people up to 30 years old because there are a lot of younger people that look older than what they are. I understand why they're doing it, Thorpe said. It makes it easier on our cashiers.
Jarron Springer, president of the Tennessee Grocers and Convenience Store Association, said his group supports carding everyone because clerks might accidentally sell beer to a minor. There may be cars getting gas, or customers in line, Springer said. You don't want to worry if some are underage or aren't.
Preventing underage purchases of beer also will help curb the number of teenagers who drive drunk, supporters say. Anything to stop underage drinking we need to do, and showing a driver's license is a small price for that, said Sen. Raymond Finney.
Haynes' bill also would require the state to establish a responsible vendors program, which would give instructions on how to prevent selling beer to underage consumers. A store could become certified for the program by showing that it had complied with the bill.
Then, should a certified store accidentally sell beer to a minor, that store would retain its license and be fined $1,000. The license of a noncertified vendor would be revoked and a fine assessed of up to $2,500.
Opponents say such measures diminish the authority of local beer boards. Haynes thinks otherwise. It's to encourage a convenience market owner to actually undertake this responsibility, he said.
In Texarkana, Texas, voters will consider a ballot question that would allow the sale of beer and wine products at grocery and convenience stores on the Texas side of the city, according to a report in the Texarkana Gazette.
For all the rhetoric about which side of the debate is more virtuous and which side is more disingenuous, or about potential increases or decreases in sales tax revenue on each side of town, the choice will be much simpler for most voters and hinges on none of the above, according to the report.
Some see alcohol as a vice and won't want to see its sale expanded. Some don't and may vote for convenience. Then there is another group that isn't pro or anti anything, but has empathy for the Arkansas side's economic plight, should the sale be approved.
If the proposition passes, possibly the most visible change in the city will be Sunday sales of beer and wine. Currently, the Texas side is dry and package stores aren't open on the Arkansas side of town on Sundays, and grocery stores there can't sell alcoholic beverages on Sunday.
Also, if it passes, there will be some shifting of serious sums of money. Some businesses on the Texas side of town will have the opportunity to make more money, and some businesses on the Arkansas side of town will presumably make less. If it doesn't pass, the profits pretty much stay put.
Meanwhile in Mansfield, Texas, the City Council is still figuring out what a referendum that allowed beer and wine sales in grocery and convenience stores should entail, according to a report in the Star-Telegram. A proposed city ordinance seeks to lift a 21-year-old ban on alcohol sales along city highways without allowing beer barns to crop up. The proposal was drafted at the request of five convenience stores on U.S. 287 affected by the ban.
The provisions would also forbid the sale of packaged beer and wine at drive-through stores, which city officials consider undesirable for development along U.S. 287 and Texas 360.
A citywide referendum in September allowed beer and wine sales in grocery and convenience stores for off-premises consumption and permitted restaurants to serve drinks without participating in a private membership club.
But the referendum didn't override a 1985 regulation that forbids packaged beer and wine sales within 300 feet of a city highway. Restaurants were not included because they sell alcohol for on-premises consumption.
The operators of the five convenience stores didn't learn about the regulation until the city rejected their alcohol permit application shortly after the referendum. They complained that the ban gives a competitive advantage to nearby grocery stores, which meet the distance requirement because of their large parking lots in front.
"We're not adamant about selling beer, but we are if our competitors are selling beer," Guy French, an assistant vice president of Tetco Stores, San Antonio, told the newspaper. "Even if Mansfield had not gone wet, we would have been fine with that as long as everybody had a level playing field."
The problem for city officials was that repealing the 1985 ordinance would open the door to beer barns, where customers drive their vehicles through the middle of the store to place and pick up their orders.
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