Council approves liquor revisions All-you-can-drink specials cut short All-you-can-drink specials and all other drink deals past 11 p.m. were banned — with a few exceptions — Monday night as the City Council unanimously passed far-reaching revisions to how alcohol is sold and consumed.
The council and liquor establishments have clashed on details about the type and time where drink specials would be allowed, and the issue was again dominant.
The intent of the law, as City Manager Pat Hentges explained it, was to “eliminate multiple-drink specials and have a cutoff to gradually slow activity.”
In this case, that meant an end to specials at 11 p.m., but bar owners wanted that pushed back to midnight, which is the current practice.
And Councilman Vance Stuehrenberg forwarded an amendment supporting the midnight argument, but it was defeated 5 votes to 2 as others on the council said it would erase changes the city has been aiming for.
“We’ve talked about this and we’ve talked about this and we’ve talked about this,” Councilwoman Tamra Rovney said. “Why would we go back? ... I can’t support this.”
Several people, including Minnesota State University President Richard Davenport, testified at the public hearing.
Davenport said Mankato “has a reputation for binge drinking” and called it a “crisis situation,” but said the school is doing a lot to combat the problem.
He did say he’d explore fining students for off-campus misbehavior involving alcohol.
Another MSU official, Vice President for Student Affairs Pat Swatfager-Haney, spoke about the difficulties of notifying parents of students who die as a result of alcohol.
“My hope and my wish is that I never have to do that again,” she said.
Still, other bar owners and their lawyer testified about a host of hoped-for revisions, most of which were ignored.
The desired changes included setting co-mingling rules so that any guardian — not just a legal guardian recognized by the courts — could accompany minors to restaurants at night. There were also some reservations about the legality of a portion of the law that would require bars to clean up the area within 50 feet of their establishments within 12 hours.
While those requests weren’t met, there were a few exceptions written into the law.
Alcohol companies sometimes require bars to sell new drinks at a lower price to help them catch on. The new law allows that sort of short-term, promotional pricing.
But more confusing was language requested by bar owners through lawyer Kenneth White that would allow establishments to continue their long-running specials tied to a particular day.
At least one bar owner interpreted the ordinance to allow these specials to persist all night long, as long as they were in place the whole day.
Dan Guimont, owner of Boomtown, predicted that bars would open at 9 p.m. and offer cheap specials until 2 a.m.
Hentges, however, said that would be against the spirit of the law.
After 90 minutes of testimony — and more than five months of public hearings — the council passed the ordinance unanimously with little discussion beyond the amendment and a few clarifying questions.
“We’ve beat it to death, let’s call the roll,” Councilman Jack Considine said, referring to the process of tallying council votes.
Still, if the discussion among bar owners after the meeting is any guide, the unanimous vote won’t put an end to the wrangling on this ordinance and its effects.
“They just made this so much worse,” Guimont said.
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