Voters in two more metro Atlanta towns will be voting on Sunday sales of alcohol.
The Henry County towns of McDonough and Stockbridge have approved putting referendums on the November ballot.
The McDonough City Council voted 5-0 on Monday to put the issue on the Nov. 8 ballot, City Councilman Monta Brown told the AJC. If approved, the law would go into effect Nov. 20, Brown said.
Brown said the council wanted to "give the voters to opportunity" to decide the issue.
"I don't know if it will make that big of a difference in revenue" for the city, Brown said, because Sunday sales are already legal in restaurants. But he said he believed voters should be given the opportunity to decide for themselves, noting that other towns in the area are likely to approve the issue, and people wanting to buy alcohol on Sunday would simply patronize stores in those towns.
Brown said legal Sunday sales could also help solve another problem: bootleggers who sell alcohol illegally on Sunday.
He estimated that there have been three cases in the past year of police shutting down bootlegging operations in McDonough.
He called it an "age-old problem in the South ... it's problematic for us and our police."
On June 13, the Stockbridge City Council voted 4-0 to put the issue on the Nov. 8 ballot, City Clerk Vanessa Holiday said.
“We’re going to let the citizens vote on that,” Mayor Lee Stuart told the Henry Daily Herald. “The council doesn’t need to vote on it. The citizens need to vote on it.”
Gov. Nathan Deal signed legislation in April allowing local governments to vote on allowing Sunday alcohol sales in stores. The issue had failed to pass the Legislature for the past several years under opposition from former Gov. Sonny Perdue.
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