LITTLE ROCK — Enhancing the dining experience is sufficient justification to add alcohol sales at a restaurant in a dry county, the state Court of Appeals said Wednesday.
A dissenting judge said the ruling contradicts Arkansas’ law on private clubs.
The court issued the ruling in a lawsuit filed by a group of Columbia County residents who sought reversal of a decision by the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board to grant a private club permit to Lamar’s Bistro, a club within the Bayou Bistro restaurant in Magnolia.
Columbia County is a dry county, but Arkansas law allows private clubs to serve alcohol in dry counties. The plaintiffs argued that Lamar’s Bistro should not have been granted a license because it did not meet the definition of a private club.
Arkansas Code 3-9-202(12)(A)(i) defines a private club as a “nonprofit corporation organized and existing under the laws of this state, no part of the net revenues of which shall inure directly or indirectly to the benefit of any of its members, or any other individual, except for the payment of bona fide expenses of the clubs operations, and which is conducted for some common recreational, social, patriotic, political, national, benevolent, athletic, community hospitality, professional association, entertainment, or other nonprofit object or purpose other than the consumption of alcoholic beverages.”
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The plaintiffs argued that the applicant for the permit, Todd Gilreath, admitted in his testimony before the ABC Board that Lamar’s Bistro would serve no secondary civic purpose and would exist solely to serve alcohol to customers of Bayou Bistro.
They cited the appeals’ court’s 2001 ruling in Chili’s of Jonesboro v. ABC, in which the court upheld the denial of private club licenses to two restaurants because the definition of a private club was not met.
Columbia County Circuit Judge David Guthrie upheld the board’s decision, and on Wednesday five members of a six-judge panel of the state Court of Appeals affirmed that ruling.
The appeals court said in the majority opinion that after the decision in Chili’s of Jonesboro v. ABC was handed down, the state Legislature in 2003 broadened the legal definition of a private club, adding the terms “community hospitality,” “professional association” and “entertainment.”
In granting the permit, the ABC Board found that Lamar’s Bistro would serve the purpose of enhancing the dining experience at Bayou Bistro, the court said.
“Determining that eating out at a restaurant constitutes a form of entertainment does not strike us as unreasonable,” Judge David Glover wrote in the majority opinion.
Judge Rita Gruber dissented. She wrote in a separate opinion that the definition of private clubs states that they must serve “a purpose other than the consumption of alcoholic beverages,” but Bayou Bistro serves no other purpose.
“The real purpose in the case, the so-called enhancement, is to serve alcohol at an existing restaurant in order to increase sales and profits. There is no ‘entertainment’ purpose,” Gruber wrote in the dissenting opinion.
Gruber said that “under the majority’s interpretation, any restaurant serving alcohol in a dry county, without more, may now qualify as a private club.”
The plaintiffs’ attorney, Jim Julian, said Wednesday he would talk to his clients to determine whether they want to pursue an appeal to the state Supreme Court.
Jerry Cox, president of the Christian conservative Family Council, said Wednesday he believes the ruling is not consistent with the intent of the law. He said the Family Council likely will talk with lawmakers about the possibility of tightening the law during the legislative session that starts in January.
“I don’t believe the Legislature ever intended to open the door that wide,” he said.