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News
Effort to cut Montgomery liquor sale hours fails : News : Oswego Ledger-Sentinel : Hometown Newspaper for Oswego and Montgomery, IllinoisEffort to cut Montgomery liquor sale hours fails
| Board majority rejects plan to halt Friday, Saturday sales at 1 a.m.
| by John Etheredge
| 11/5/2009
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Montgomery Village Board member Denny Lee wants to limit the hours village merchants can sell packaged liquor on Friday and Saturday nights.
Currently, merchants who are licensed to sell packaged liquor may do so until 2 a.m. on both Friday and Saturday nights.
In an effort to limit drunk drivers in the village and fights in the parking lot of one local retailer, Lee wants to set a 1 a.m. curfew for the sale of packaged liquor.
But Lee's request was rejected in a straw poll of village board members during a meeting Oct. 26.
Board member Rob Watermann joined with Lee in voicing support for limiting the liquor sale hours, but board members Andy Kaczmarek, Jeanne Felten, Bill Keck and Pete Heinz agreed they would like to see the village maintain the 2 a.m. curfew.
Board members briefly discussed the issue after Police Chief Dennis Schmidt presented them with a survey of sale hours for packaged liquor now in effect in the village, Kane and Kendall counties and other area municipalities.
Schmidt noted that the curfew time for packaged liquor sales in most of the communities on Friday and Saturday nights is either 1 a.m. or 2 a.m.
The survey also shows that Montgomery and Oswego both allow packaged liquor sales Sunday through Thursday nights until 1 a.m., while the sales must end at 11 p.m. in Aurora Mondays through Thursday nights.
Village President Marilyn Michelini noted that the Village of Sugar Grove permits the sale of packaged liquor until 2 a.m. every night of the week.
"I guess they don't have a problem over there," Michelini said.
But Lee noted that packaged liquor sales end in Aurora on Friday and Saturday nights at 1 a.m., but are permitted until 2 a.m. in the village, Oswego and Kane County.
The extra hour for liquor sales, Lee charged, serves to attract undesirable individuals to the village.
"It's a magnet for certain people in Aurora to come across and buy their liquor here," he said. "To me, it's not worth the extra hour."
Lee added, "My dad always said that nothing good happens after midnight, and I know nothing good happens after one or two in the morning."
Lee noted that village officials have previously discussed reducing liquor sale hours, but declined to unless neighboring Oswego also did so. He explained that if the village set a 1 a.m. Friday and Saturday night curfew for liquor sales but Oswego kept its 2 a.m. curfew, liquor customers from Aurora would be driving south through the village to reach the stores in Oswego between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m.
Lee said such a scenario could result in additional drunken drivers traveling through the village.
Watermann said he agreed with Lee.
"This goes back to my days working as a night manager at (an Aurora) hotel," Watermann said.
He explained patrons at the hotel would drink alcoholic beverages late into the night and then go out to neighboring communities to buy more packaged liquor since sales end earlier in Aurora than in Montgomery, Oswego and Kane County and Kendall County.
"If you're out looking for liquor at 1:30 in the morning, it's just not good," Watermann said.
He added that it appears from reading the police reports in the newspaper that village police already "lead the area" in DUI arrests.
Heinz, however, said he believes the village should keep its current liquor sale hours.
"Otherwise, we end up with them just driving through town to spend their money some place else," he said.
Heinz noted the village receives sales tax revenues from liquor sales
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