Tuesday, December 3, 2024–11:30 a.m.
-David Crowder, WRGA News-
The Rome Alcohol Control Commission will discuss the future of variances pertaining to the city’s 50-50 food drink ratio during a work session Wednesday.
Under the current ordinance, establishments that sell liquor have to garner at least half of their revenue from the sale of food, unless they receive a variance.
Old Havana has a variance that allows them to use the sale of tobacco products to count toward the ratio while Alibi Prohibition and Combat Market is allowed by a variance to count gun sales. The most recent variance was granted for Elevation Cigar House on North Fifth Avenue, which permits the sale of premium tobacco products to count toward the ratio.
There was discussion regarding eliminating future variances altogether.
Although the three establishments with variances would be grandfathered in, there were concerns over the proposed amendment because those variances would not transfer to another owner or location.
“Upon additional reflection, we really feel like that may not be the best position to take,” said ACC Chair Billy Cooper following the November ACC meeting.
“Where we need to be is to have some guardrails in place so that we have some criteria from the ACC standpoint,” he added. “Really, we don’t have criteria right now. All we can really do is say ‘yea’ or ‘nay’ and in the past, we have been saying ‘yes.’ We then send it to the city commission and they pretty much do the same.”
The other proposed ordinance would eliminate sales from food trucks from the ratio.
The Foundry at the corner of Fifth Avenue and West Third Street is currently the only establishment that counts food truck sales and they are in the process of constructing a kitchen.
Wednesday’s ACC work session will begin at 4:30 p.m. in the Sam King Room at Rome City Hall.