Foster Saunders wanted red wine with his steak, an impromptu meal with his parents in Winder last weekend, so he drove to an Ingles grocery store and picked up an $18 bottle.
With that otherwise mundane act, he became one of the first people in Georgia to legally buy alcohol on a Sunday, then leave the store with it, in well over a century.
“When you want it, you want it,” said Saunders, whose city got a jump on the rest of the state. “I just feel like it’s a basic right, a freedom, for somebody to be able to purchase something that’s legal Monday through Saturday.”
Many metro Atlantans will taste that freedom starting Sunday, finally erasing the mental notes to plan ahead for Sundays that have been ingrained in Georgians’ minds for generations.
“I’m definitely excited about it,” said Keidra Dobbs of Duluth, who plans to swing by a package store near her house and buy beer to drink while watching Sunday sports. “It’s been kind of an inconvenience, like last week, when I had to rush to get to the store by 11:45 Saturday night before they stop selling.”
After 12:30 p.m. Sunday, grocery stores, convenience stores and liquor stores can ring up alcohol in at least 18 cities in Cherokee, Clayton, DeKalb, Fulton and Gwinnett counties.
Other than liquor stores opening shop on a seventh day, the change has required few adjustments, with businesses having to do little more than turn on cooler lights and take down “no Sunday sales” signs. Most cities starting this early aren’t requiring additional licensing or fees.
The Georgia Food Industry Association has been advising grocers to nevertheless double-check with their local governments before starting, lobbyist Kathy Kuzava said.
In Gwinnett, Braselton is asking businesses to fill out applications, and Auburn will require a $125 annual fee beginning next year. Dunwoody, starting Sunday sales Dec. 4, will require a $1,100 per year fee, a prorated amount due immediately.
Though opponents of the change said it would lead to more road deaths due to driving under the influence, police say they won’t be beefing up patrols today. Woodstock police Capt. Kevin Culpepper said most of his city’s drunken drivers are either passing through or leaving bars and restaurants. His department won’t be making any adjustments, he said.
“I think it would be very inappropriate to start poaching out liquor stores,” Culpepper said.
Roughly 50 metro area cities approved Sunday sales in referendums Nov. 8, made possible by legislation that lifted a statewide ban so long as local voters approved. Statewide, 128 cities held votes — 105 saying yes — on the first election date since the law changed, according to data compiled by the Georgia Food Industry Association.
Most of metro Atlanta’s approving cities either set effective dates in December or January or have to wait for their city councils to amend alcohol ordinances, sometimes in two or three readings.
Changing Avondale Estates’ rules takes three readings, and City Manager Clai Brown said previously that under the Council’s meeting schedule, the earliest Sunday that sales could start would be Dec. 18. Instead, the council had a first reading at Monday’s regular meeting, then called special meetings Wednesday and Thursday for readings two and three.
“We’re listening to our business owners,” Brown said.
Denny Young, co-owner of the Beer Growler in Avondale Estates, said he didn’t think the ability to make Sunday sales was “all that historic.”
“It should have happened a long time ago,” he said, “judging by the vote counts.”
The statewide ban that the Legislature loosened this year dated to 1937, passed after the end of national and statewide prohibition.
Before Georgia started its own prohibition in 1908, local governments had their own bans on Sunday sales stemming from the temperance movement.
Paul Thompson, an Emory-educated history professor at South Carolina’s North Greenville University, who’s writing a book about Atlanta’s temperance movement, said his research indicates the ban on Sunday sales could go back as far as Colonial times.
“My guess,” Thompson said, “is this is the first time in Georgia’s history that this has ever been allowed.”
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Cities starting Sunday package sales Sunday
Cherokee: Woodstock
Clayton: Jonesboro
DeKalb: Avondale Estates
Fulton: Alpharetta, College Park, East Point, Milton, Roswell, Sandy Springs, Union City
Gwinnett: Auburn, Braselton, Duluth, Grayson, Lawrenceville, Snellville, Sugar Hill, Suwanee
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