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Beer, wine in restaurants in LaFayette gets the go-ahead
LaFayette City Council decided Monday evening, June 14, to allow the sale of beer and wine in city restaurants. The motion passed by a 3-1 vote.

Mayor Neal Florence expressed his hopes that this measure will help appease “liquor by the drink” proponents.

“This will give them something,” he said Tuesday, noting that sales of hard liquor in restaurants will “probably not” follow on the heels of this vote. “They’ve been trying for two-and-a-half years …. this should be enough.”

Responding to pressure from a few local restaurant owners last year, who yearned for the revenue and atmos-phere that alcohol sales in their establishments would bring, LaFayette City Council elected to give the public the say in the matter. Despite having already voted “no” to beer and wine sales in restaurants, the city council decided during its May 11, 2009, meeting to place a “liquor by the drink” referendum on the Nov. 3, 2009, ballot. The measure failed to pass by a mere 22 votes.

But the city council kept feeling the pressure.

“Many of the restaurant owners had still talked to us on just wanting beer and wine,” council member Andy Ar-nold said Tuesday. “This is different than what the referendum was on. The referendum was on liquor by the drink.”

Up until now, perhaps the only place in town to purchase a beer in a social setting was the LaFayette golf course. Arnold said that fact was a minor contributing factor in the council’s decision, not at all a deciding one.

“I don’t know that [beer sales have] really been a success at the golf course,” he said, “but we felt that since the golf course was city-owned, it was a little bit of an issue not to offer [beer] for private citizens to have with their meal as well.”

The restaurant owners, however, don’t care why the motion passed. They’re just happy.

“Oh great! Oh wow! Wow, wow, wow, thank you!” was the emphatic response from Miguel Santiago, owner of Yan Yesica & Janiria Mexican restaurant in LaFayette. “Now they have to work out the license.”

Santiago was one of the proprietors who kept pushing to have beer and wine available in restaurants. Now that the vote has passed, the sooner taps start flowing, the happier he’ll be.

“I want them to come out with the license as soon as possible,” he said.

The official paperwork necessary to start uncorking bottles in Santiago’s restaurant isn’t yet written or signed, but it should be happening soon.

“Once we get the ordinance drawn up and have the two hearings [necessitated by law]….businesses will be able to obtain a license, probably from City Hall,” Arnold said.

The first of the council’s two work sessions to hammer out the details of the ordinance is set for next Tuesday.

There will be limits and regulations imposed in the new ordinance, of course. Arnold said he and the other council members are reviewing similar ordinances used in other cities in the northwest Georgia area, to see how their restrictions are structured.

“It’ll probably be 70 to 75 to 80% food sales that must occur,” he said, meaning that a restaurants which will be selling beer and wine must nonetheless still receive about three-quarters of its revenue from the sales of food, rather than alcohol.

Key Koukous, owner of Twin’s Pizza & Steaks, feels that, even in limited amounts, the availability of alcohol will have a positive impact on whether future visitors to LaFayette decide to stay in town for the evening. The new soft-ball fields, especially, he said, will have “people outside drinking, and we have to keep them in town, we want to keep them here.” Having beer and wine available in local restaurants for softball parents to continue enjoying off the field will be, in his opinion, a significant boost to the local economy.

Koukous is just plain grateful that LaFayette will now be “like everyone else… Chickamauga [was] help[ed], Fort Oglethorpe [was] help[ed]” by the sale of beer and wine in restaurants, he said, “so why not here?…I’m the one who put [it] on the board. We want[ed] to get it.

“Now, we win,” he said.


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Thank You Trenton. Lets get some good places to eat. This is a great first step.

Meeting Time. Tommorow 5:30 City Hall