Lincoln City Council:
Liquor Ordinance to get re-write
Rick Hoefle to be appointed to commission

 

[January 17, 2019] 

At the end of the Lincoln City Council’s Committee of the Whole on Tuesday evening, Alderwoman Heidi Browne asked the council to approve a re-write of the recently passed Liquor Ordinance for the city. She noted that the numbers reflected in the ordinance are backward to the original intention of the recommending committee, and was causing much concern among local businesses.

The topic of the liquor license has been a challenge for Lincoln aldermen as they have struggled to determine how to provide a liquor license that will also put in place some control on video gambling within the city. The city has no say in the issuance of gaming licenses, but they can control gaming by stipulating that the gambling machines only be a portion of the total gross receipts of any business holding the license.

The license for gaming is issued by the state, and only to certain establishments such as bars, restaurants, and other qualified businesses that serve liquor by the glass. Gaming licenses are also offered to truck stops, but are not available to businesses that sell package liquor only.

When the topic came up several months ago, it was because one convenience store in Lincoln wanted to partition off a portion of the store for gaming. To do so, the business would also have to provide beer or alcohol by the glass and would have to be separated from the convenience store and offer a separate entrance. The business was going to meet all those requirements, but there was not a liquor license available for them.

A second business wanted to build a gaming room near the interstate and the Thornton’s truck stop, focusing mainly on gaming, that business would also serve beer by the glass. Again there was no license available.

The city began working on addressing the issue. Among the viable solutions was to combine the Class B and Class C licenses into one and expand the number of licenses available.

At the December 26th meeting of the council, Steve Parrott introduced the recommendations of a special committee. In that meeting, Parrott said that part of the recommendation was to drop the 60 percent requirement to 30 percent. This was the requirement that said each business must provide evidence that 60 percent or more of its annual sales come from something other than gambling. With the change it would mean that those businesses would need to provide evidence that at least 30 percent of their annual revenues come from something other than gaming. This could include food, alcohol or other retail sales.

On the 26th, City Attorney John Hoblit was asked to draft the new ordinance. He was instructed on what to draft and at that time recommended that the city review the draft in the next committee of the whole before placing it on a voting agenda. However, aldermen agreed that they wanted to vote on the new ordinance as quickly as possible, so they would do so at the January 7th voting session.

At the January 7th voting meeting the aldermen discussed the ordinance and at that time there appeared to be some confusion about the 30 percent requirement. However, the ordinance was voted upon and passed with a vote of 5-2-1.

Aldermen who voted yes included Michelle Bauer, Heidi Browne, Dayne Dalpoas, Ron Keller and Steve Parrott. Those who voted no were Jeff Hoinacki and Tracy Welch. Ron Fleshman abstained from the vote.

This week Browne said that the ordinance had been written backward to what the recommending committee had asked for, and that she wanted the aldermen to instruct Hoblit to re-do the ordinance. She noted that the 30 percent was indeed, as originally interpreted on December 26th, supposed to go toward the percentage of sales that would come from something other than gaming.
 

The ordinance, as passed, implied that 30 percent or less of the total revenue may come from gaming. The original intention was for the ordinance to say that 30 percent or more of the total gross revenue should come from the sale of products other than gaming.

Steve Parrott commented saying that several had read about the change to the ordinance and had reached out saying that the 30 percent or less from gaming would put some of the local businesses out of business. He said there was a great deal of concern expressed over what the city had passed.

Hoblit said that he would draft a new amendment for the ordinance, but this time, he would strongly recommend that the entire ordinance be reviewed by the full council in a committee of the whole meeting before placing it on a voting agenda. Aldermen agreed.

The ordinance will be amended and reviewed by aldermen at the Council’s Committee of the Whole on January 29th and may be placed on the voting agenda for February 4th.

After the meeting, Tracy Welch noted that the 30 percent had been stated correctly in one portion of the ordinance document and incorrectly in another. This added to the general confusion.

Rick Hoefle to be appointed to liquor commission

In other business related to the liquor license. Aldermen will vote on February 4th to appoint former Lincoln Alderman Rick Hoefle to the Lincoln Liquor Commission. As a part of the new rules for the liquor license, the council approved adding members to the commission and also paying the commissioners a stipend of $25 per meeting attended.

[Nila Smith]