Tagged: Alcohol

The Hopkinsville City Council approved a new ordinance at a special meeting yesterday which would lift restrictions on liquor sales outside of the downtown district. However, several council members were concerned that the current zoning ordinance wouldn’t prevent bars and liquor stores from opening near schools and churches and decided to postpone lifting the restriction until January 1stof 2014.

The Murray City Council has approved a $44.6 million  budget despite failed attempts to amend the spending plan. Discussions lasted well into the night yesterday because of what Councilman Danny Hudspeth says was his obligation to bring forward the four amendments.

Hudspeth entertained cutting a two-point-five-percent salary increase for all city employees, the hiring of a new storm water and drainage technician, money for building a scenic trail and a $50,000 allocation to Murray State University for an alcohol education program.

The Hopkinsville City Council will hear the first reading tonight of an amendment that would cut the fifty-year-old restriction that alcohol sales only be sold in the downtown area.

The move would essentially eliminate the four-by-fourteen-block boundary in which the sale of alcohol has been limited to since the mid-1960s.

Quarterly profits from alcohol sales in Murray are going up as the city continues to fill the number of package stores the state permits.

Murray Police Sergeant Kendra Clere says the city’s 8 percent sales tax on alcohol has brought in almost $193,000 since January.

Clere told the City Council yesterday that DUIs and alcoholic intoxication charges have also risen, but says she expects those numbers with more officers working DUI calls.