The way liquor is sold in Montgomery County will be a topic that comes up in a number of local bills set to hit Annapolis this term.
The first, sponsored by four District 18 delegates, would ease the restrictions on businesses in Kensington seeking to sell alcohol to customers.
Kensington has for years been a dry town. According to officials with Montgomery County’s Office of Intergovernmental Relations, restaurants and other eateries there are able to sell spirits only if they make 70 percent of their profits from food.
But the upcoming bill, MC 703-07, would lower that amount to 50 percent, with the hope being that Kensington would have less trouble attracting new businesses to town, Intergovernmental Relations Director Melanie Wenger said Tuesday.
Another piece of legislation on tap for the 2007 session pertains to wholesale distribution of wine in the county.
Del. Brian Feldman is sponsoring a bill that would force Montgomery County to give up its liquor monopoly in that realm so that small wineries will be allowed to sell directly to restaurants and other retail dealers.
Wenger said a small business is defined as one that sells less than 27,500 gallons of wine or less in a year.
The only such winery believed to fit that bill in Montgomery County is a new facility in Dickerson called Sugarloaf Mountain Vineyard, which opened its doors last year.
At a Tuesday meeting of Montgomery County Council members, they endorsed Feldman’s bill in order to aid this winery.
Maryland is one of 18 states, known as control states, that regulate alcohol sales directly by conducting their own retail and/or wholesale distribution of beverage alcohol.
Between Jan. 1, 2000, and June 30, 2005, the county’s Liquor Control Department contributed more than $100 million to the General Fund.
