You may pay more when you buy a drink at a bar, restaurant or club in Macon

Bars and nightclubs in Macon don’t have to close by a certain time, which sometimes leads to the late night debauchery in the city.

The Macon-Bibb County Commission may attempt to reduce some of the alcohol-infused crimes by enforcing a closing time for businesses that serve alcohol. That’s one of a slew of amendments to the county’s alcohol laws under consideration, including a new alcohol tax, providing more freedom for officials when granting or denying licenses and upping most of the fees charged for alcohol licenses.

Currently, bars, restaurants and nightclubs are required to stop serving alcohol at 2 a.m., however, they can remain open past then.

There are also some instances where late night establishments will have a “Bring your own beverage” rule that allows people to still consume liquor past 2 a.m.

“When a club is open at 6 o’clock in the morning or 4 o’clock it is not illegal or out of bonds in anyway,” Commissioner Virgil Watkins said at Tuesday’s commission meeting. “It’s typically when the violence and everything happens.”

There’s also a “slew of other glaring gaps in our code that I think provides for potential growth in our budget and better oversight and safety for the community in general,” Watkins added.

The new alcohol tax would be charged only for drinks consumed at the establishment, Macon-Bibb Assistant County Attorney Michael McNeill said.

“I found dozens of jurisdictions that do this already,” he said. “It’s been in the state law for years. We just haven’t had it.”

Highlights of the proposed amendments to the alcohol code:

• 3-percent “pour tax” charged to bars and restaurants for beer, liquor and wine;
  
  
• Forcing businesses that serve alcohol for on-site consumption to be closed 3 a.m.- 6 a.m. and special event permit holders must stop serving by midnight;
• Increasing alcohol license fees to bring them closer to other cities and counties in the state;
• Waiving alcohol license fees for special event and catering permits and prorating fees for new licenses; and
• Updating the code related to how a license can be grandfathered to a new owner.

The topic of the county’s alcohol code were sparked last year when the County Commission declined to renew the alcohol license for M&M Grocery, 2760 Montpelier Ave., for what officials say became a public nuisance, McNeill said.

The proposed changes also gives commissioners more flexibility when granting an alcohol license.

“If a license comes before the commission that maybe raises some concern, but it’s not enough to just flat out deny, you can impose conditions such as requiring lighting upgrades or security cameras or staffing requirements,” McNeill said.

Another amendment would deal with the person who applies for the license and is sometimes only loosely tied to that business.

“We don’t really know what the background is necessarily of the people operating the business,” McNeill said. “This fixes that by requiring someone directly involved in the business to be the agent.”