Oops! Beer sales slip by

Taverns and clubs in South Salt Lake have been illegally selling beer on Sundays for the past two months, but city leaders say they weren't aware of the law.

The City Council suspended the ban on Sunday beer sales Thursday night after bar owners inundated city office with calls and complaints about the law, which went into effect Aug. 24 as part of an alcohol ordinance.

The ban prohibits the sale of light beers on Sundays but allows bar owners to sell hard liquor and mixed drinks.

"They just kind of slid it under the door," said Mickey Wimrow, manager of the Club House in South Salt Lake. "It just doesn't seem right, especially when you can buy hard alcohol but not just regular beer. There's nothing that makes sense about that."

But Mayor Wes Losser said the provision simply "got by" his office and the council without being noticed. The council will take a closer look at the Sunday ban in two weeks when council members decide whether to repeal the law.

"We just didn't catch it — none of us did," he said. "It's just one of those things. We made a mistake."

Bar owners didn't catch the change either, Wimrow said, and only realized they were in violation when a letter was sent in early October reminding them that alcohol cannot be sold on election days until after the polls close.

That letter also mentioned the August enactment of the Sunday beer ban, she said.

City Attorney Dave Carlson, who drafted the Sunday beer ban, said he included the provision because he thought the city's previous alcohol ordinance had ineffectively tried to limit beer sales. The previous ordinance, he said, was hard to understand and limited beer sales during certain hours on Sunday.

"I guess there was just some confusion on our part. I interpreted them (previous ordinances) as an attempt to restrict sales of alcohol on Sunday," Carlson said. "I had made that more explicit because I felt like that was the original intent of the ordinance."

Now Carlson said he was wrong in that interpretation and expects the council to either strike the Sunday ban or reach a compromise with certain hours in which bars can't sell light beer on Sunday.

But Carlson added that he did inform the council of the beer ban and sent a letter to all tavern, pub and bar owners after the ordinance was approved. There were also two public meetings to discuss the ordinance, he said.

The ordinance has not been strictly enforced, he added.

"We haven't sent police around to the bars to see if they're serving beer on Sundays," he said.

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