McComb officials passed an ordinance about a month ago allowing liquor to be sold in restaurants on Sundays, but they had to be reminded of it Tuesday when a resident presented a petition asking for that action.
Rachel James had a petition with signatures from representatives of seven local restaurants. As James approached the podium, City Administrator David Myers told her the ordinance was already in effect.
The ordinance says beer, light wine and alcoholic beverages may be sold at McComb restaurants from 11 a.m. to midnight Mondays through Saturdays, noon to midnight Sundays and until 1 a.m. New Year’s Eve.
“I don’t want to steal Ms. Rachel’s thunder, but I did tell you earlier that we had a surprise for you. If you will, a good surprise,” Myers told James.
Myers said a shooting this spring at a McComb event center led the board to pass an ordinance addressing regulations on places where drinking may occur, and it included the hours of when beer, light wine and alcoholic beverages could be sold at restaurants.
“The city kind of got in a hurry at that point to put a regulation on event centers and those kinds of things. Of course, along with the attorney (Board Attorney Marcus Williams), we were able to draft something with event centers,” Myers said.
Myers said Zoning Director Henry Green drafted the ordinance with Williams.
Myers said the new regulations were published in the Enterprise-Journal on Aug. 31, Sept. 7, 14 and 21 and took effect after that.
“That’s wonderful,” James said.
Myers said the city plans to get the word out that restaurants are now able to sell liquor on Sundays.
“The only issue for us, obviously, is that we didn’t do a good job getting it out to the public,” he said. “For that, we apologize.
“Now that we know, we will be doing a better job advertising and letting folks know because, technically, we’ve already lost revenue because of those sales on Sunday. It’s been in effect for about a month.”
