Jefferson City Council approves updated language in city alcohol ordinance

The Jefferson City Council approved changing the language of the city's alcohol ordinance at their voting session Monday night.

 

As part of Ordinance 20-03, city council members added "Micro-Breweries" and "Taverns" to the code, as well as change the requirements for certain types of consumption, such as events. A summary of the changes made to each section is below.

 

Starting with Article 1 of Chapter 6 of the city's ordinance code, terms that defined and are used with local brewing establishments were changed, including deleting the terms "Craft Brewer," "Pre-Packaged Food" and "Tap Room."

 

In Section 2, language is added to clarify "Micro-Brewery" as a location that produces less than 15,000 barrels of malt beverages per year; it also clarified what rules a micro-brewery that allows on-site consumption must follow versus off-site, whether it's take home, retail or whole sale, among other things. It also defined "Tap Room," serves only beer or wine and which may serve food but does not meet the definition of a food service establishment.

 

In Section 3, the definition for "Indoor Publicly Owned Civic and Cultural Center" was updated and struck the requirement of having a full service kitchen; it also added locations such as clubhouses and theaters.

 

A minor clerical revision in Section 4 leads to Section 5 which updated the alcohol license permit board. "The Jefferson City Council shall serve as the alcohol license and permit appeal board shall conduct hearings required by this section and decide upon all appeal applications by a majority vote," the new language reads.

 

Section 6 altered the location requirement for a micro-brewery, now requiring the business to be located in a zoning district which permits restaurants, or where there are eating establishments near a hotel or motel.

 

Language regarding the term micro-brewery was updated in Section 7.

 

Section 8 added the new Article X, which covered alcoholic beverage catering, including off-premise, event permits and administrative rules.

 

Sections 9 and 10 remained the same, and allowed the ordinance to be in effect as soon as it was voted and confirmed by the council, as well as repealing any ordinances or parts of ordinances in conflict with the updated measure.

 

The full document can be found here.