House signs off on U of M stadium beer sales

Minnesota House of Representatives walks into a bar...says to the bartender, "Hey, we just passed the omnibus liquor bill, 107-16."

This is the long-awaited bill that clears the way for beer sales at University of Minnesota football games. It's the result of years of negotiations between the university – which only wanted to sell alcohol to the patrons in the upper suites – and the Legislature, which wanted the beer to flow to the cheap seats as well. The Senate passed the omnibus earlier this week.

The omnibus also includes a handful of smaller bills about wine tastings and craft beer festivals and whether liquor stores should be allowed to sell t-shirts with their logos.

But, despite the best efforts of some lawmakers, it did not lift Minnesota's ban on Sunday liquor sales, or allow anyone under-21 to have a drink in a bar with their parents.

"If it's legal on six days, why isn't it legal on seven?" said Rep. Steve Drazkowski, R-Mazeppa, who offered the Sunday liquor sale amendment, much to the chagrin of the omnibus sponsors, who were hoping to keep controversy to a minimum.

"We're all adults," agreed Rep. John Kriesel, R-Cottage Grove, arguing that it's time to modernize the last remnant of the "Blue Laws" that used to ban Americans from shopping for much of anything, not just alcohol, on the Lord's Day.

Both Drazkowski and Kriesel tried to amend the omnibus to legalize Sunday liquor sales – Kriesel's bill would have legalized Sunday sales just in the border counties. Both attempts were defeated resoundingly.

The amendments' supporters say consumers deserve the right to buy a bottle of wine if they have company coming over on Sunday. Opponents say the small mom-and-pop liquor stores would suffer, and there's no reason why people can't buy the wine for their Sunday parties on Saturday.

Rep. Phyllis Kahn, DFL-Minneapolis, made an equally unsuccessful attempt to restore an under-21 drinking amendment that had been stripped out of the Senate's liquor omnibus. It would have allowed anyone under 21 to drink in a bar or restaurant, in the company of a parent.

Opponents worried that the bill would endanger Minnesota's share of federal highway funding. The government cuts funding if states don't set the drinking age at 21.

But Kahn said she modeled the language in her amendment after a similar law in Wisconsin, which skirts around the federal prohibition by requiring younger drinkers to be in the company of their parents.