Harvey City Council Votes To Reverse Ordinance Restricting Liquor Sales, But This May Not Be End Of Issue
HARVEY, Ill. (CBS) -- The Harvey City Council on Monday voted to reverse an ordinance that bans the sale of alcohol after midnight.
But that does not mean for sure that the ordinance is history.
As CBS 2's Jermont Terry reported, the location for a Harvey City Council meeting was abruptly changed at the last minute Monday. The change caught many by surprise as they turned out en masse.
No one knows better how the midnight ban on liquor sales have hurt businesses more than the owners of SugaBabyyy's.
"Extremely slow – our numbers have dwindled at least 62 percent," said SugaBabyyy's owner Lynn Brown.
Owners Ron and Lynn Brown are preparing to celebrate six years of running the sports bar. Yet there has not been much to toast about, ever since the city banned booze from flowing at clubs and bars after midnight.
"I only see that you're trying to kill our business by even putting that ordinance into place in the first place," Lynn Brown said.
Last month, CBS 2 showed how countless business owners were feeling the pinch. The new law not only required businesses to stop alcohol sales at midnight, but to close their doors too.
Mayor Christopher Clark said the change is needed to address crime in and around Harvey.
"My grandma always told me that nothing good happens after 12 o'clock anyway," Clark said last month.
But bar and nightclub owners did not agree.
"The problem is that people are not coming because they have to be gone by 12," Lynn Brown said.
So business owners made signs and originally packed the Harvey City Hall. They came feeling optimistic the council would reverse the ordinance, but before the meeting could get under way, there was an announcement that it was being moved to Thornton High School due to capacity issues.
So everyone marched off to Thornton High School. Ahead of the vote, some questioned whether the mayor would let the issue go even if the council reversed the law.
"I really feel that he's got some rabbit in his hat he's going to pull out to make this whole day go his way," Ron Brown said.
Meanwhile, Mayor Clark had some supporters who spoke at the meeting.
"We've been through the storm, and we're trying to pull out of storm – make some changes that we have to make and some things that we have to do. We have to do it in a different way," one man said.
Around 10 p.m., the council did indeed vote to reverse the liquor ordinance. But CBS 2's Terry is indeed told that Mayor Clark in the coming days will likely use his veto power to overrule the council and keep the ordinance in place.