News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The town of Monterey hopes to have a first reading of its new beer ordinance by July.
During a Thursday Beer Board work session, members gave City Attorney Willard Mullins the go ahead to use Sparta’s ordinance as a base point.
“Are you okay with me taking theirs, seeing what problems I see with it and then seeing me trying to fix that and come back with a couple of solutions that I think would fix it?” Mullins said. “And if y’all say you don’t like that we can go back to the drawing board.”
Monterey wants three things allowed with the new guidelines: special event permits, manufacturing permits and off premise selling of beer by restaurants. Mayor J.J Reels said Mullins will return with his findings at a June 17th Beer Board work session to prepare for July’s Board of Aldermen meeting.
The main discussion of the work session: the Beer Board wants to offer special event beer permits. The Beer Board would also be in charge of approving which events can come to the town and sell beer.
“The ordinance needs to be structured in a way that how can we keep those unwanted events that you don’t want,” Mullins said. “(…) The difference to the right to assemble is a lot different than the right to drink beer.”
If more than two applications are submitted for an event, Mullins said he recommends the town use a computer generated software to randomly determine who is awarded to avoid discriminatory claims.
“This is going to be a problem in the future,” Mullins said. “How do we be fair in the future without discriminating, because that is the next question that is going to come up is if we get two breweries in town and both of them apply for the same event and you pick one over the other, how are we selecting that? I think there needs to be something in the ordinance.”
A single business or distributor would be allowed one permit per 29 day that lasts for 48 hours. Alderman Nathan Walker said he wants Mullins to also come back with findings on liabilities for special events.
