Hazelwood City Council Hears First Reading of Revised Alcoholic Beverage Ordinance, Debates 50 Percent Requirement for Liquor Licenses

Hazelwood city attorney Kevin O'Keefe left the May 4 city council meeting with a homework assignment--to present city council with some options regarding how the city can help one business that isn't meeting the city's requirement to retain its liquor sales license.

The restaurant in question is on Howdershell Road, and the homework due date is today. City council is set to hear O'Keefe's options regarding how to help the bar in it's troubled state at tonight's city council meeting.

This isn't the first time Hazelwood City Council has discussed liquor licensing. At the March 2 city council meeting, Bill Cameron, the owner of Classics Bar & Gril, expressed concerns with the affect of the new on his business. He spoke to council about a possible closure he would be facing because of a dip in sales due to the ban, coupled with the city’s liquor license requirements.

At that time, Cameron asked the council to consider alternatives to its city code on  liquor licensing because he foresaw only a few more months in business as it stands currently. As a result, he said, he and his wife may lose their home in Hazelwood, and his employees would lose their jobs. Cameron said he is currently not meeting city code regarding the license, which is a requirement of more than 50 percent food sales for the drink liquor license. He said he can’t raise his food prices to meet the requirement.

The discussion continued into April as Hazelwood City Councilwoman Carol Stroker asked to place the matter up for discussion at the April city council work session because "times have changed," and she wanted council to confer with O'Keefe to see if anything can be done to create an equal playing field for the smaller area restaurants and businesses. Still there was no resolve at the work session as quite a few council members felt any repercussions Cameron felt his business was facing due to the ban should be taken up with St. Louis County government.

So the May 4 meeting was consumed by a conversation regarding the bar, once again, and how to help save it from closing. Conversation ranged from whether or not to have two separate liquor licenses for alcohol sales, or whether the city should stick to its guns and keep its one license that requires any restaurant or bar wanting to sell alcohol to also have at least 50 percent of its sales be from food purchases.

Cameron plead to the council asking it to create an ordinance that would allow him to be open six days a week and sell liquor even though he admitted he doesn't sell enough food, based on the city's current ordinance on the matter.

"Classics Bar & Grill is my livelihood," he said. "The City of Hazelwood is the only city in St. Louis County that has one liquor license for a restaurant or bar."

This is a statement with which O'Keefe did not agree.

"Are you suggesting that a 50 percent liquor license is only unique to Hazelwood?" O'Keefe asked.

Cameron clarified that he was suggesting that Hazelwood is the only area municipality that doesn't have variances on liquor license sales and the percentage of food required to be sold to maintain liquor licensing.

But all-in-all, the majority of the council was of the consensus to allow nature to take it's place.

"I don't want to change our law," Hazelwood City Councilman Mike Conley said. "I don't see how we can do this without being slammed by other businesses."

Conley added that he takes offense to those he said made comments that the city is trying to close businesses.

"I don't think there is any member of council that wants a business to shut down," he said. "We did not create this situation. The voters of St. Louis County created this situation and as much as I don't like it because I am against the smoking ban, that's just my personal opinion. The law is the law. The residents of St. Louis County voted and I don't think we need to change our law to address that."

Hazelwood City Councilwoman Mary Singleton was also against a change in the ordinance or a variance because she doesn't want to risk public safety for the sake of business.

"I think we should remember why this 50 percent rule was established in the first place and that's to curb public intoxication," she said. "I think there's a public safety issue here and as Mr. Cameron pointed out, someone could get drunk in is bar and go fight in the parking lot and he has no control over that. So I think if we keep that standard at 50 percent we improve public safety."

Councilman Robert Aubuchon said any sort of variance would open up the flood gates to more businesses making similar claims.

"I don't think it's right to do a single variance for one individual business," he said. "Other people are going to come up here and try to do the same thing."

Mayor Matthew Robinson, did not take a stance on the issue but said that it was the city's duty to at least try to help small businesses.

"I think we do single incentives and actions and consideration for any business development that comes to the City of Hazelwood in trying to get them to do business with the City of Hazelwood," he said. "This is a claim of hardship and I don't think we should slam the door in (Cameron's) face."

Stroker finally made the motion, which after some discussion received a motion of support from city council to have O'Keefe to look into a single variance or other alternatives to help out Cameron once his license expires at the end of this month.

Council will hear those options and vote on the matter today.

In other news, Hazelwood City Council:

• heard first reading of  Chapter 600 of the city's code and ordinances regarding alcoholic beverages. As part of the revised ordinance, all references to “nonintoxicating beer” have been eliminated. A definition of “managing officer” has been added to the ordinance to assure the person who is issued the license is available and responsible for the day-to-day operations of the business, according to Hazelwood city clerk Colleen Wolf. The ordinance also includes a provision for assessment of a $100 late charge for renewal applications submitted after June 1. The 300 foot rule for churches and schools has also been clarified by specifying the measurement is from property line to property line, and changing “regularly used as a place of religious worship” to “primarily used as a place of religious worship.” Regarding the the application process, the word “new” is being added to clarify that notices to surrounding property owners will be sent for new applications for by-the-drink and package licenses and not for annual renewals. Wolf said the additions and omissions to the ordinance are derived from the parallel state statute. Changes to Section 600.380 of the ordinance exclude gas stations from obtaining a tasting permit.

• heard first reading of an ordinance that would change they city's secondary seat belt violation law to a primary violation law. This would mean that officers could ticket drivers for not wearing seat belts without having pulled them over for a separate offense. Currently, Missouri is a secondary seat belt law state, which means a law enforcement officer can only ticket a car passenger for not wearing a seat belt if the officer has the car pulled over for a separate offense and notices the seat belt violation. So should the local ordinance receive final approval, it would conflict with the state law.

• heard first reading of an ordinance to continue services with the Missouri Department of Transportation for automated traffic signal enforcement equipment.

• approved authorization of a contract for tuckpointing improvements at Hazelwood City Hall. The award went to the lower of two bids, B and K Tuckpointing Company, for $8,482. Because city hall was constructed more than 20 years ago in 1984 and there has been some mortar deterioration, according to city manager Edwin Carlstrom. There was $20,000 included in the current fiscal year budget for the repairs.

• approved authorization of a contract for fire dispatching services. The contract extends the existing contract with North Central County Fire Alarm System, Inc., for fire dispatching service from February 1, 2011 through June 30. The contract amount is $32,500.

Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that at its May 4 meeting, Hazelwood City Council approved final reading of a revised ordinance regarding alcoholic beverages. City council  heard first reading of the ordinance at the May 4 meeting. No action was taken on the matter at the meeting.