Cedar Hills to vote on banning alcohol sales

CEDAR HILLS — Voters in Cedar Hills will have a lot to think about come June.

That's when Cedar Hills has placed initiatives mandating Sunday business closure and banning alcohol sales on the ballot, as well as a proposed multimillion-dollar bond to refinance the struggling Cedar Hills Golf Course.

The two initiatives were placed on the ballot largely due to the efforts of the Coalition to Preserve Cedar Hills, which sponsored a petition drive to push the measures after similar ordinances were voted down by the City Council in March.

The coalition gathered enough signatures to place the measures on the November ballot, but council members decided Tuesday to combine the initiative vote with the golf course bond election on June 28.

The coalition was pushing the ordinances partly because the first commercial development in the city is moving forward.

"We think that the community needs to establish standards, and then whatever businesses want to come in and service the community are welcome," said coalition chairman Gary Duncan. "That's how we think that it should work, and not the other way, with the business dictating to the community what the standards are."

Smith's Food and Drug had been a potential anchor tenant for the commercial district near Lone Peak High School but pulled out last week to pursue other locations.

Some city officials have speculated that the store pulled out over bad publicity concerns, fueled by the coalition's petition efforts.

Before Smith's decided to pull out, the company conducted a survey of Cedar Hills residents to gauge opinion on the Sunday closure and alcohol issues. A store spokesperson said last week that the results weren't the reason Smith's opted out of building in Cedar Hills, as most residents seemed open to allowing alcohol sales and Sunday business operation, even if they would not benefit from it.

"We felt that most citizens, while they may not be in agreement (with buying alcohol or operating on Sundays), believed that it should be made available to people to choose," said Smith's spokeswoman Marsha Gilford.

Coalition members, on the other hand, have stated that the majority of Cedar Hills residents support the measures.

"Clearly, the vast majority of residents prefer that a local grocery store not sell alcohol and be closed on Sunday," Duncan said. "So we're just trying to establish as a formal policy that which everybody wants."

About 500 of the 7,500 Cedar Hills residents signed the petition to put the initiatives on the ballot. The coalition needed 393 signatures to ensure a vote.

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E-mail: mdecker@desnews.com