Snellville leaders see Sunday alcohol sales boosting growth
By Shane Blatt
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Snellville’s economy, stuck in neutral for years, is poised to move forward now that local restaurants can pour alcohol on Sundays, city officials say.
“Now that we have it, it gives us more weapons in our ability to develop,” Mayor Jerry Oberholtzer said Wednesday. Sunday sales passed by a nearly 3-to-1 margin in Tuesday’s referendum.
Oberholtzer said the city’s ban on Sunday sales not only meant the loss of restaurants and revenue, but also created a domino effect. Swanky hotels and chic boutiques didn’t want to open in Snellville, leaving the Gwinnett County community of 20,000 with a surplus of pawn shops and auto parts stores, he said.
Tuesday’s vote is seen as opening the door to high-end eateries and professional-service businesses such as lawyers and doctors. It also will renew talks over annexing retail establishments such as the Avenue, and likely will lead to the re-establishment of the Snellville Development Authority, inactive for 20 years, the mayor said.
Meanwhile, seven restaurants whose beer and wine licenses were voided by a judge in January — after the city approved Sunday sales by council vote, rather than through a referendum — will be able to pour again beginning Sunday. Other restaurants hope to follow suit.
Felipe Lopez of Little Mexico Bar & Grill on Scenic Highway said Wednesday his restaurant hopes to obtain a Sunday distilled spirits license in the next few weeks. Then it can sell its signature Texas margarita on Sunday and, Lopez said, keep patrons from walking out the door.
“It will increase profit another 20 percent,” he said. “It will keep customers happy. Now they’re going to stay, [and] not going to leave.”
Snellville was one of three cities in Gwinnett prohibiting Sunday sales in restaurants, along with Dacula and Loganville. Of the state’s 585 cities and 159 counties, about 100 jurisdictions allow restaurants to pour on Sundays.
However, Snellville’s ban stood out because of the city’s size and proximity to Atlanta, said Michele Stumpe, an attorney specializing in alcohol compliance laws. Typically, she sees the Sunday prohibition among rural towns with populations under 10,000.
Former Councilman Robert Jenkins, who was involved in a recent lawsuit against the city, said he doesn’t believe booze will lure restaurants. Market and demographic factors, not the added availability of alcohol, will do that, he said.
“The mayor thinks the city’s going to realize significant revenue, along with economic growth, of restaurants coming to Snellville simply because and only because they can sell alcohol on Sunday,” he said. “That is a scab-dog lie.”
Any profit generated from Sunday sales will be offset by the added cost in police protection and problems associated with alcohol abuse, Jenkins said.
Resident Sam Rich, 76, said he drinks socially, but he sees no redeeming value in alcohol.
“This whole thing is about money,” he said. “The city wants the taxes off liquor. The question is: Is it worth it?”
Snellville is expected to garner $30,000 to $50,000 in alcohol license fees, plus occupational tax revenue. The mayor estimates restaurants have lost $1.5 million in sales since 2004, when the last alcohol referendum was approved. Critics argued it didn’t address Sunday sales specifically, so city leaders allowed alcohol to flow just six days a week.
Mayor Pro Tem Barbara Bender acknowledged that Sunday alcohol sales aren’t the “end all, be all” for Snellville’s future, but she said they are a vital piece of the economic puzzle.
“I think of the city as a stool with four legs,” she said. “One of those legs is Sunday sales.”
The others, she said, are the arts, the land-use plan and the Snellville Tourism and Trade Association, the newly formed community-building arm of the city.
“Snellville’s been limping along for years,” Bender said. “Now we’ve cured the limp, and we’re set to run.”
David Stedman, economic development director for the Evermore Community Improvement District, said the vote is a step in the right direction.
“Where good restaurants go is where good retail goes,” he said. “It was to the benefit to Snellville to pass this.”
Kurt Schulz, 63, believes that’s the truth. After Tuesday’s vote, the longtime resident walked out of City Hall flashing a wide, toothy grin.
“We all felt this was what the people wanted,” he said. “Let’s go, Snellville!”