6B
Thursday, January 26, 1995
NATION/WORLD UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Loosening of alcohol laws approved by committee
The Associated Press
TOPEKA — Some legislators are determined to eliminate the last big taboos contained in the Kansas liquor laws, and they're making some progress in the Statehouse.
In the century-old struggle between wet and dry forces in Kansas, the wets prevailed again Tuesday in a debate in the House Federal and State Affairs Committee.
The committee endorsed a bill that would significantly expand liquor sales. It would end the state's long
standing bans on Sunday sales of packaged liquor and liquor sales on credit. It also would allow sales on three more national holidays.
Since 1948, when Kansas was one of the last states to abandon prohibition, the push has been on to liberalize its liquor laws. That push has accelerated some since 1986, when voters approved a constitutional amendment to permit the sale of liquor by the drink in restaurants.
Supporters portrayed the bill as necessary to allow liquor stores in border counties to compete with
liquor stores in other states, where stores can stay open on Sunday and accept credit cards.
"This bill is a business-oriented approach to allow effective competition across state lines," said Tuck Duncan, lobbyist for the Kansas Wine and Spirits Wholesalers Association.
The committee endorsed the bill or an unrecorded 13-5 vote. The action sent it to the House floor for debate.
"This is the greatest loosening of alcohol laws in Kansas since the 1886 liquor by the drink amendment," said Dave Schneider, lobbyist for Kansans
for Life at Its Best, the state's largest temperance group.
Kansas has long been known for its prohibitionist heritage. Its voters prohibited the sale of alcoholic beverages in 1880 and didn't rescind the decision for 68 years. Even as late as 1986, the state constitution said the "open saloon" was forever prohibited.
Current law permits taverns and bars to open on Sunday and restaurants to sell liquor by the drink on Sunday. But Sunday sales of packaged alcoholic beverages has been
forbidden.
The law also prohibits the sale of liquor on Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas. The bill would leave only Thanksgiving and Christmas as days when liquor could not be sold.
Under the bill, voters in each county would decide whether to allow Sunday sales. Liquor stores could be open between 1 p.m. and 8 p.m.
Duncan said he believed more legislators would be likely to support the bill because it required a vote before a county could allow Sunday sales.
"Those counties that are dry probably will remain dry, and the counties that are wet, particularly the ones on the border, probably will try this option," said Rep. David Adkins, R-Leawood.
"It's really a bill for Sunday DUIs and a Sunday increase in the crime rate," Schneider argued.
Credit card sales always have been banned. Last year, former Gov. Joan Finney veteed a liquor bill that contained a provision removing the prohibition.
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