GOOD HOPE — With a new alcohol ordinance in place, and a municipal review committee appointed, Good Hope has moved quickly to establish guidelines for the implementing of legal sales in the city.

According to mayor Corey Harbison, alcohol license applications will be available at city hall starting today. A copy of the revised alcohol ordinance is also available at city hall, as well as on the city’s website at www.goodhopeal.com.

The revised ordinance approved Monday by the city council changed the city’s two-year-old ordinance, drafted ahead of an unsuccessful 2010 referendum, in several key ways.

The council reduced the fee the city will collect from local retail liquor sales, dropping the old ordinance’s 15 percent in favor of 12 percent — the same proportion required in neighboring Cullman.

It also reworked language setting buffer distances for various types of alcohol-selling businesses. For restaurants, clubs and lounges licensed for on-premises consumption, the council dropped the old distance buffer requiring of 1,200 feet between such establishments and churches. It instead set the church buffer at 650 feet. Restaurants still must sit at least 1,200 feet from schools and child care locations under the revised ordinance.

The council left intact a requirement that stores selling alcohol for off-premises consumption — such as package and convenience stores — must do so at least 1,200 feet from all churches, schools and child care facilities. An exception that reduces that distance to 400 feet, where stores lie across a four-lane road from schools, churches or day care facilities, was also left in place.

Similarly, the council changed the buffer boundary used to calculate such distances, opting to measure the space between two establishments’ outside walls instead of their property lines. The exterior wall reference point will be used to ensure distance buffer compliance from churches, schools and child care facilities for businesses that sell liquor of any type.

The revised ordinance left unchanged the requirement that no two businesses license for off-premises sales can be located within 800 feet of each other.

Under the new law, liquor license applicants in Good Hope who elect not to open a business after applying for a license with the city can have their $5,000 license fee refunded in full, so long as they notify the city clerk within 30 days. The $500 application fee, however, is not refundable.

The revised ordinance also steeply reduces the licensing fee for on-premises consumption from $5,000 to $500. Applicants for off-premises consumption businesses will remain at $5,000.

“I’m pretty proud of what we accomplished Monday,” said Harbison. “I know our meeting ran long, but we adopted the new ordinance and we set up our alcohol review committee. And, even with the changes that we made to the old ordinance, I still feel that Good Hope has the strictest alcohol ordinance in Cullman County.”

Vetting liquor license applicants will be the city’s Alcohol Review Committee (ARC), whose makeup was finalized at Monday’s council meeting. Serving on the ARC will be the mayor, city clerk Lisa Dahlke, planing commission president Mike Kress, and two at-large citizen appointees — Jerry Lawson and Fabian Holland.

The ARC will review all applications for licenses to sell alcohol in Good Hope, and will recommend to the city council whether to approve or deny those requests. The city council will make the final decision in each instance. The ARC will also act as a point of contact for license applicants as they submit documentation to meet the city’s requirements. The Alabama Beverage Control board will handle all background checks on applicants.



* Benjamin Bullard can be reached by e-mail at bbullard@cullmantimes.com or by telephone at 734-2131 ext. 270.