The East Baton Rouge Metro Council will revisit the proposed ordinance to ban drink specials today at 4 p.m.
The ordinance has been deferred twice, but Councilman Ulysses Addison, who proposed the ordinance, said he will push for a final decision at today’s meeting despite some members’ advice to wait for a decision on a similar proposed state bill.
The proposed local ordinance, which the Campus Community Council for Change supports, would prohibit bars in Baton Rouge from selling drinks at any price under the retail price, offering free drinks, holding games with alcohol involved or advertising alcohol-related promotions.
Addison said he will propose amendments to the ordinance that will exempt restaurants and caterers, push back the time the ordinance goes into effect and allow bars to sell alcohol up to 60 percent less than the retail price.
The local ordinance is not the only legislation that could limit drink specials.
Rep. T. Taylor Townsend, D – Natchitoches, proposed State House Bill 827, which could restrict drink specials throughout the state if it passes in the next session.
The bill would allow “all-you-can-drink” specials to be priced at 50 percent below the retail price or multiple drinks for one price after 10 p.m.
Addison said Councilman Mickey Skyring might suggest that the parish ordinance be delayed to see how the legislature decides on the proposed bill.
Steve Uhr, a Minneapolis attorney, told The Daily Reveille that the current situation in Baton Rouge regarding drink specials is similar to a case he is representing in Madison, Wis.
Uhr, who graduated from Harvard Law in 1984, is part of a class action suit involving 25 bars in Madison for horizontal price fixing. He is also suing the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which funds the CCCC, and the University of Wisconsin – Madison Chancellor John Wiley.
Uhr said the bars in Madison, encouraged by an organization similar to the CCCC, agreed in the spring of 2004 to raise drink prices and eliminate drink specials.
Uhr said he thinks the agreement in Madison qualifies as price fixing and violates federal anti-trust laws.
Uhr also said the situation in Baton Rouge is similar to the one in Madison because it sets a price floor for alcohol, but he noted that in Madison the price determination was never part of any legislation.
Uhr’s case is awaiting judicial decisions on several motions.
Nancy Mathews, director of the CCCC, wrote an e-mail to 40 members of the CCCC on March 17, and she stated twice that the e-mail was “not for dissemination or publication” about the upcoming Metro Council meeting.
Mathews said several groups had discussed the amendment Addison will propose, and she said she will speak at the meeting in favor of the ordinance.
“I believe the proposed compromise demonstrates progress in the right direction, though it does not achieve everything desirable,” Mathews said in the e-mail.
Mathews said the CCCC and supporters of the ordinance have selected people to speak on behalf of the ordinance, and she said she hopes the opposition would prevent the meeting from lasting too long.
Contact Ginger Gibson at [email protected]
Vote on drink specials ban today
March 22, 2006