Sunday alcohol sales clears key Indiana Senate committee for first time ever

For the first time ever, a key Indiana Senate committee has approved a measure allowing carryout Sunday alcohol sales.

The Senate Public Policy Committee, typically a graveyard for such bills, voted unanimously Wednesday to allow convenience, grocery, drug and liquor stores to sell alcohol from noon to 8 p.m. on Sundays.

The measure, Senate Bill 1, now moves to the full Senate.

The historic vote is the most significant step yet in the effort to end Indiana’s Sunday sales ban, which has been in place since federal Prohibition ended in 1933.

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The difference this year is that the state’s small but powerful liquor store industry has thrown its support behind the bill. Liquor store owners have traditionally opposed Sunday sales, fearing they would lose market share to supermarkets and big box stores.

But with their exclusive right to sell cold beer also under assault, liquor store owners entered into an unlikely alliance with grocery and big box stores, which have been seeking Sunday sales for a decade.

Under the deal, liquor store owners agreed to support Sunday sales as long as grocery and big box stores opposed expanding cold beer sales. Right now, liquor stores are the only retailers allowed to sell cold beer in Indiana.

“It would have been different today if the liquor stores didn’t support it,” Sen. Ron Alting, the longtime chairman of the committee, said after the vote. “And it would have been different today if big box (stores) wouldn’t have supported it. Absolutely.”

Alting, who is the largest recipient of campaign contributions from liquor stores, has refused to hear Sunday sales or cold beer bills in the past.

Now, the Lafayette Republican is urging his fellow lawmakers to “keep the bill clean,” noting that previous efforts to legalize Sunday sales have failed when other restrictions are tacked on to the bill.

He also said he would not call Senate Bill 1 for a vote on the Senate floor until after his committee hears and votes on a separate bill next week that would expand cold beer sales to grocery and convenience stores.

A similar Sunday sales measure has been introduced in the House. That chamber’s public policy committee held a hearing earlier Wednesday, but is not expected to take a vote until next week.

Recent public opinion polls show that a strong majority of Hoosiers support both Sunday alcohol and expanded cold beer sales. Indiana is the only state that regulates beer based on temperature and is among a shrinking minority that restrict carryout sales on Sundays.

The Senate committee hearing on Wednesday was unusually short for the divisive issue, lasting only 30 minutes. Hearings in the past have lasted hours.

Much of the vetting for this year’s alcohol legislation, however, took place last year during meetings of the Alcohol Code Revision Commission. Lawmakers created that group after two Rickers gas stations began selling cold beer under a restaurant license last year.

The group recommended the Sunday sales measure, but narrowly failed to recommend expanded cold beer sales.

Call IndyStar reporter Tony Cook at (317) 444-6081. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.