At the March 21^st Village Board Meeting, Village Staff will be requesting direction regarding consideration to modify the liquor code to allow for earlier liquor sales on Sundays.

Over the past few years, Staff has received requests from breakfast and lunch restaurants requesting that the Village look into allowing earlier hours for liquor sales on Sunday. These types of establishments generate most of their business in the morning and conclude early afternoon and are not open for dinner.

Currently, the Village has three classifications for establishments designated as restaurants. All three classifications (“A”, “AA”, “E”) allow alcohol sales beginning at 8am Monday through Saturday.  However, on Sundays, liquor sales can begin at either 10am or 11am depending on the liquor classification.

Various businesses have inquired about earlier Sunday hours including: Scratchboard Kitchen; Egg Harbor Cafe; Honey Jam Café; Hey Nonny; and a former breakfast/lunch restaurant in the Northpoint Shopping Center.

Egg Harbor provided data that Sundays are their busiest days of the week and on average represents more than 24% of their weekly sales. As they open at 7am, it is problematic that they can’t sell an alcoholic beverage until 11am when only a few hours are left in their business day. Egg Harbor further indicated that they have a total of 16 Egg Harbor Cafe's in the Chicago area and 11 of those do not have any restrictions within their hours of 7am to 3pm. They would prefer a 7am ability to serve on Sunday but would be grateful for any improvement to the current 11am restriction.

Scratchboard Kitchen currently opens at 8am and has requested liquor sales to begin at 8am on Sunday.  The owner indicated that they have guests requesting to have an alcoholic beverage prior to their 11am allowed hours. In addition to accommodating their customers, they believe they would also be more marketable for special events such as wedding showers and special celebrations.

Sunday liquor sales start time was obtained from 21 municipalities (attached). A summary of Sunday Start times is as follows:

Twelve of the municipalities allow a liquor sale start time of 8am or earlier. 

Recommendation

Staff believes an 8am Sunday start time for liquor sales is a reasonable request. Of the 21 municipalities that responded to the survey, 10 have start time earlier than 8am, 2 have an 8am start time, and 9 have a start time later than 8am. Making the adjustment would support the business requests  for an earlier start time and this change would be consistent with the current liquor license hours, Monday through Saturday, for the liquor classifications of “A”, “AA, and “E”. 

It should be noted that there are other liquor classifications that have a restaurant or kitchen, such as Bowling Alley’s (Class “DD”), Veteran/not-for-profit organizations (Class “C”), Senior Housing Dining Facility (Class “H”) and these establishments cannot sell an alcoholic beverage until 10am on Sundays.  The Board could consider exploring further adjustments to start times for other classifications in the attached chart, which is noted as Section 13-503 Hours of Operation. 

Next Steps

Staff is looking for direction from the Board as to whether or not there is a consensus to modify the liquor code to 8am on Sundays for various classifications. Once a Village Board recommendation is made then Staff will prepare an ordinance for the Board’s consideration at a future Village Board Meeting.