The Senate Committee approved Senate Bill 136 on Tuesday. The bill would give restaurants in Louisiana more liberty with alcohol sales.Supporters for the bill were present at the conference room with shirts saying, “Stop Murphy’s law from killing Louisiana businesses, Support Senate Bill 136.”The shirts referred to Alcohol and Tobacco Control commissioner Murphy Painter who has fined several restaurants in Baton Rouge for not following state regulations regarding restaurants functioning as a bar, including Chelsea’s Café, without the bar license.The owners of several restaurants, including Chelsea’s and Mellow Mushroom, expressed support for the bill at the hearing.Chelsea’s owner Dave Remmetter believes Painter is interpreting the law too liberally and that the bill needs to clearly define how a restaurant can sell alcohol.”I support the bill,” Remmetter told The Daily Reveille. “What it does is clarify the laws.”Sen. Lydia Jackson, D-Shreveport, said she proposed the bill iin response to the ATC enforcement of the law.”Since I’ve filed this bill, I’ve gotten calls and letters from across the state expressing concerns about the enforcement practices and the lack of clarity in the law,” Jackson said.Jackson said she is just trying to protect small business owners who are trying to earn a living in the state.In February, Painter sent a letter to restaurants in Baton Rouge expressing specific stipulations for restaurant establishments regarding alcohol sales. The committee in Tuesday’s hearing mentioned the letter in which Painter wrote restaurants could not have drink specials.Painter told the committee the letter was poorly drafted and said no one is enforcing drink specials. The letter was re-drafted, he said.”We’ve done everything … possible to support the restaurant industry in this state and the bar industry in the state,” Painter said.Painter said the problem the ATC had with restaurant establishments arose when they shut down their kitchens at night and began charging admission and hiring live bands.But the committee agreed with Jackson that the bill was necessary to protect restaurants from ambiguous interpretation.The bill must be passed in both Senate and House Committees to go into effect, but the bill was approved to continue with only one amendment by Sen. Daniel Martiny, R-Metairie.The amendment clarified that a restaurant’s main purpose was still to sell food, and the committee clearly expressed the state requirements must still include more than 50 percent sale of food within the law.The bill would clarify some of the terms within a restaurant “R” permit and give restaurants more leeway, including the live music and drink specials at night, as long as the state requirements for sales are met.—-Contact Joy Lukachick at [email protected]