More cities go with the flow

Tamarac is latest to loosen laws limiting Sunday booze sales

It’s getting easier to buy booze across South Florida, as cities one by one remove decades-old blue laws that prohibited the sale of liquor on Sundays.

Tamarac on Wednesday night became the latest local government to OK lifting a ban on early Sunday alcohol sales.

Fort Lauderdale lifted its Sunday ban in September, citing the benefit to tourism. And Margate did so this year. Cities have been loosening the laws to benefit beer-guzzling tailgaters at football games and diners who want a mimosa with brunch.

Sweeping away the Sunday restrictions is “better for the community,” said Peggy Mohler, the general manager of the Aruba Beach Cafe in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, which

eliminated its ban in 2011. “People want to go out, they’re on vacation. They want to wake up, [get] a Bloody Mary or mimosas.”

“I think it was a ridiculous rule to begin with,” she said.

Among the other governments to no longer prohibit Sunday alcohol sales:

Since 2005, stores in unincorporated parts of Palm Beach County have been allowed to cash in on Sunday booze sales after 7 a.m.

Boynton Beach changed its laws in 2008.

Boca Raton jumped on the booze bandwagon a year later.

Delray Beach tossed its blue laws in 2013.

Coral Springs followed the next year to make “Sunday like every other day.”

Meantime, alcohol rules could be loosened statewide, too. A proposal to remove a Depression-era “wall” separating the sale of liquor in Florida stores was among 17 bills sent Tuesday to Gov. Rick Scott.

The heavily lobbied “liquor wall” measure would repeal a 1934 law that requires liquor stores to be stand-alone facilities. Retailers such as Walmart and Target have pushed for the repeal, which would allow them to sell hard liquor in their stores.

The measure has been opposed in recent years by Publix and ABC Fine Wine & Spirits. Owners of small liquor stores have called on Scott to veto the proposal. Scott has until May 24 to sign, veto or allow the bills to become law without his signature.

In Tamarac, the removal of the Sunday sales ban is expected to receive final approval in the coming weeks. The city’s ban, enacted in 1975, had prohibited supermarkets and restaurants from selling alcohol between 2 a.m. and noon Sundays.

Under the new plan, alcohol sales will be allowed from 8 a.m. to 2 a.m. each day, and Sundays would be the same as the rules any other day. Hours will be extended to 4 a.m. on New Year’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day.

Tamarac Commissioner Marlon Bolton had objected to the ban’s removal, concerned it could encourage drunken driving on Sundays. “I don’t believe Tamarac is ready for such a law.” But Commissioner Michelle Gomez called it an archaic rule that needed changing.

“We are a busy community now,” she said.