Did You Hear the One About the Priest Who Walked into a Bar?
For decades, the Illinois Liquor
Control Act contained restrictions against locating a new licensed
establishment in proximity to a church or school. 235 ILCS 5/6-11. Despite this restriction, Section 6-11 of the
Liquor Control Act also contained dozens of exceptions to this rule which were
enacted by the General Assembly and approved by a sitting Governor. That’s right – each time a business which
planned to sell beer, wine or liquor wanted to operate near a church or school,
it took an act of the legislature to grant permission.
Finally, by broad bipartisan
votes, the State of Illinois has granted local liquor control commissioners the ability to
relax this restriction. Public Act
100-663, which became law last week, allows a local liquor control commissioner
to grant an exemption to the prohibition if a local rule or ordinance
authorizes the local liquor control commissioner to grant that exemption.
So, if a community wants to
exercise greater local control, it must adopt an ordinance that delegates
authority to the Mayor or Village President (local liquor commissioner) to grant exceptions to the
proximity rules described in Section 6-11. The law does not describe any limitations on the scope of local control,
so the exceptions granted by the local liquor commissioner may be partial or
complete and can be subject to conditions.
Post authored by Adam Simon, Ancel Glink
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