Group ready to push Sunday liquor, beer sales in Fort Smith

Eric Pendergrass and Jack Marts are leading an effort to allow Sunday beer and liquor sales in Fort Smith.

J. Lee Didier is a Fort Smith liquor store co-owner. He’s against Sunday liquor sales. More on Didier later.

Pendergrass, an attorney with Smith Cohen & Horan law firm in Fort Smith and an officer with beer wholesaler Burford Distributing, has submitted proposed ballot and petition language to the city of Fort Smith that would place a local option vote on the November ballot.

Sunday sales would raise city and county revenue without having to raise taxes, Pendergrass said when asked of the advantages of Sunday sales. Extra revenue would be welcomed, especially in Fort Smith where 2009 sales tax collections are posting double-digit declines. Fort Smith’s portion of the 1% countywide tax is down $868,466 for the first 10 reported months of 2009.

Pendergrass says Sunday sales could boost collections of tax revenue from beer and liquor sales as much as 15%. If 15% is gained, the gain would be small compared to Fort Smith’s operating budget of about $40 million. The liquor tax in Sebastian County collected $428,698 in 2008 (the last year state officials provided a breakdown on the figures). A 15% bump could produce around $65,000 in extra tax revenue. Collections statewide of the beer excise tax totaled $3.3 million in 2008 and will likely hit $3.5 million in 2009. A 15% gain on that tax would produce an extra $525,000 statewide. And it’s unclear what portion of the about $18 million a year collected from Fort Smith’s 1% tax (street tax program) results from beer and liquor sales.

The Arkansas Wholesale Beer Distributors (AWBD) have asked the Arkansas Department of Finance & Administration for a financial impact report on Sunday beer sales, Pendergrass said. As of Friday morning (Feb. 5), DF&A Assistant Revenue Commissioner John Theis said he was not aware of the request but that it may not have yet reached his desk.

Gov. Mike Beebe recently urged the AWBD to push Sunday sales through local option ballots and not the Arkansas Legislature.

Other reasons to push Sunday sales include reducing the number of Arkansans who buy beer in Oklahoma on Sunday, reduce the amount of floor space retailers can’t use on Sunday, and the creation of new jobs. Pendergrass said Sunday sales would add up to 15 jobs to area convenience store operations.

“There are a lot of folks going across the state line into Oklahoma to purchase beer on Sundays,” Pendergrass told The City Wire. “(Convenience) stores are basically having to shut down up to a third of their operation one day a week.”

If approved, petitions would be place in Pic-N-Tote convenience stores in Fort Smith and will be carried by Burford Distributing employees who are registered Fort Smith voters, Pendergrass said.

“It will be a good old word of mouth grassroots effort,” Pendergrass said when asked how the effort would be pushed.

(The City Wire is waiting on process details — number of signatures required, deadlines, appeals, etc. — from the Fort Smith City Clerk’s office. This post will update when that info is received.)

And now back to Didier. He co-owns In Good Spirits, a liquor store at 12100 U.S. 71 S. near the entrance to Riley Farms in south Fort Smith. He says most area liquor store owners will actively oppose Sunday sales.

“I’ll be against that. We won’t have a day of rest. My employees need a day of rest. What it does will force me to be a 7-day-a-week, 365-day-a-year business,” Didier said.

He also said the market isn’t big enough to push enough customers through all the liquor stores on a Sunday to cover the costs of being open. Also, Didier doubts the petition will get enough signatures to get on the ballot, especially if liquor store owners organize against it.

“I don’t think there is enough money in it to stay open on Sunday. … They’re going to have a hard time with this,” he said.

Lance Beaty, who is a partner in 71 South Liquor in Fort Smith, disagrees with Didier. He says not allowing the sale of a legal product based on the day of the week is “silly.”

“Limiting commerce related to the day of the week is as antiquated as it could possibly be,” Beaty said. “If it’s good on Tuesday it should be good on Sunday. … And from a tax base standpoint, it’s not in the best interest of a community to limit sales of an item for any reason.”