Chris Sikich and Tony Cook

The push by Indiana grocery stores and pharmacies to allow carryout alcohol sales on Sundays got a boost Monday when the Indiana Chamber of Commerce announced its support.

Chamber President Kevin Brinegar said his organization would lobby to lift the Prohibition-era ban in the 2015 legislative session.

Perhaps more importantly, he suggested that an influential lawmaker, Rep. Tom Dermody, R-LaPorte, chairman of the House Public Policy Committee, plans to author the legislation.

“We have heard that Representative Dermody is going to introduce a bill,” Brinegar said during the chamber’s legislative preview event Monday at the Hyatt Regency in Downtown Indianapolis.

As a result, “it seems likely it will get a hearing, a vote and get to the House floor for consideration,” Brinegar said.

Dermody, however, told The Indianapolis Star he hasn’t made any decisions and is weighing his options.

“I have spent time with both sides of the issue,” Dermody said, “and both sides have come with strong arguments.”

Alcohol sales are handled differently in each of the 50 states, but Hoosiers face the broadest Sunday restrictions — the prohibition of beer, wine and liquor sales at grocery, convenience and package liquor stores.

The influential package liquor store lobby has for years blocked the move to expand carryout sales on Sundays. Liquor stores argue it would give nationally owned grocery stores an advantage and drive smaller, locally owned package liquor stores out of business. Various religious and social groups also oppose the change, because it would increase the availability of alcohol.

For the past seven years, Public Policy Committee chairmen in the Indiana House and Senate have killed bills dealing with Sunday sales without debate.

Support for expanding Sunday sales appears to be gaining momentum, though, at least in the House.

House Speaker Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, advocated for the issue to receive its first public hearing in 2013. Then he appointed a new chairman, Dermody, who at least seems open to the possibility of expanding Sunday sales.

Bosma recently said he doesn’t have a problem with expanding Sunday sales but would leave the decision to Dermody and his committee.

“It seems to me it’s much ado about very little,” Bosma said Monday. “My assessment of it is that it doesn’t really change the economics for the participants in the industry much.”

The grocery stores, convenience stores and pharmacies that have been pushing for a change hope Dermody will break the logjam this year.

John Elliott, a spokesman for Kroger, said Sunday is the second-biggest shopping day of the week. He said an internal study estimates that Indiana businesses lose $300 million to $600 million in annual revenue because they can’t sell alcohol on Sundays. His study estimates that allowing the sales would generate $25 million to $40 million in taxes.

Elliott thinks the House will approve Sunday sales, but he’s less sure of the bill’s fate in the Senate.

He noted lawmakers seem increasingly open to loosening restrictions on alcohol, including approving a law this year to allow sales of beer and wine during the Indiana State Fair.

“The door just keeps going further and further open,” Elliott said.

How wide the door will open for Sunday sales in the Senate remains to be seen. Sen. Ron Alting, R-Lafayette, who chairs the Public Policy Committee in the Senate, for years has steadfastly refused to give Sunday sales advocates a hearing.

Alting could not be reached Monday but reiterated his personal opposition to Sunday sales in an interview with The Star in June. At the time, he said such sales would hurt package liquor stores and increase the possibility of drunken driving and minor consumption.

Despite the chamber’s support for expanded sales, Patrick Tamm, chief executive officer of the Indiana Association of Beverage Retailers, thinks a bill expanding Sunday sales would have little chance of passing.

And the chamber, he said, shouldn’t be advocating for one business sector over another.

Lawmakers can begin filing legislation Tuesday for the 2015 legislative session.

Call Star reporter Chris Sikich at (317) 444-6036. Follow him on Twitter: @ChrisSikich.