City council votes to regulate alcohol sales

Murray State students may notice a pricing difference the next time they go to a local restaurant to order an alcoholic beverage.

On Aug. 11, Murray City Council representatives approved an ordinance prohibiting restaurants from offering alcoholic drink specials after 6 p.m. However, "happy hour" may continue.

At the same meeting, council members also voted down, in a 9-2 decision, a restaurant owner's proposal to extend alcohol sales an extra hour to 1 a.m.

The decisions upset Chip Walker, senior from Louisville.

"I think it takes a lot of the college-town feel out of the city," he said. "If you go to any other college town, you'll find plenty of bars that have dollar drink specials every night."

The decision came after the Public Safety Committee recommended the city council vote on an ordinance to extend the midnight alcohol curfew by an hour.

City Administrator Don Elias said one reason behind the decision against extending the curfew was to prevent excessive drinking. He also said the committee members feared an extension would cause restaurants to surpass the percentage limit and lose their liquor licenses.

State law requires restaurants to make 70 percent of its sales in food and only 30 percent through alcohol. He said an extension of an hour may put the restaurants at risk for breaking the law.

"No one's going to be eating that late at night," Elias said. "They'll be drinking."

One argument Elias heard from those in favor of an extension was the fear that younger drinkers will travel to Tennessee where bars can sell alcohol until 3 a.m. After drinking too much, people would then drive back to Murray intoxicated, he said.

Despite this fear, Elias said there have been no problems or complaints to date and restaurants are cooperating.

Chip Walker said he thinks it will hurt businesses because people will not go out as much and less money will be spent, which will ultimately hurt the city.

Walker, who worked as a Summer Orientation counselor, said many incoming freshman questioned him about popular drinking locations in Murray.

"Many of the questions were: 'Where are some fun places to go party?' and 'Where are the good bars?'" Walker said.

As a counselor, he could not answer their questions regarding alcohol, but Walker said he could understand their desire to know what opportunities students had to party with their college friends.

Without these opportunities, he said people will more than likely travel to Tennessee to get alcoholic beverages at reduced prices, which will take money away from the city.

Amanda Knott, manager of Nick's Family Sports Pub, said the vote has not negatively affected her business yet.

"Basically, with the hidden agendas the city had, it wouldn't have affected the restaurateurs because we couldn't stay open until one o'clock on Saturday," Knott said. "It would have been considered selling alcohol on Sunday anyways."

Knott is, however, happy the city decided to get rid of drink specials because they increase competition.

"All the restaurants are on the an equal playing field on prices, and now customers are looking for service and atmosphere rather than a cheap drink," Knott said.

At the city council meeting, members also passed mandatory server training regulations. The training will aid servers in recognizing underage drinkers and teach them how to deal with liability issues.

Restaurants have 120 days from the measure's date of passage to train all servers, afterward any newly employed servers will have 90 days to complete their training.

All Nick's servers completed the state's Server Training and Alcohol Regulations program.

Amanda Knott said the mandatory training requirement for servers will benefit the community.

She said Nick's is located in five other states, which all require servers to complete training programs.

"It is good that the city of Murray is getting up to speed with the other states," Knott said.

City residents voted to become moist, serving alcohol by-the-drink in restaurants, in 2000 and several local eateries started serving alcohol in March 2001.

Said Don Elias: "Since Murray went wet for the drink, we feel like it's been very positive."