The story that broke in Green Forest the other day — the state has ended the requirement for local option elections for Sunday alcohol sales in Arkansas — has stirred a fuss there.

To recap: With little notice, new omnibus alcoholic beverage legislation immediately allowed every on-premise alcoholic beverage permittee in the state’s 33 wet counties to sell drinks on Sunday, from 10 a.m. to midnight. The law also repealed a rule that Sunday sales were only allowed at restaurants with food.

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These changes caught people by surprise, understandably, first in Green Forest, when the owner of the Brew and Cue tavern announced his intentions to start serving brews this weekend.

Not going to happen. The new law also gave cities and counties the right to limit alcohol sales on Sunday to shorter hours, or no hours at all.

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The Green Forest City Council Thursday night approved a hurryup ordinance to ban alcohol sales on Sunday. Ginger Shiras, who broke this story for the Harrison paper, reports the play-by-play on the jump. In Little Rock, where taverns have already begun taking advantage of the end of the restaurant rule on Sunday sales,  I don’t think we need fear a religious backlash sufficient to roll back Sunday opening.

Oh, by the way: A witness says the string of profanities uttered at the City Council during the vote by the unhappy wife of the tavern owner was “stupid ass motherfuckers.”

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