MN Restaurants Petition For To-Go Alcohol Sales
As everyone tries to keep up with the changing times due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, it seems like small business owners have been especially hard-hit; many of these smaller businesses are in the food and beverage category - and have temporarily lost their ability to serve eat-in customers in their dining rooms. Alcohol sales play a large revenue role at many of those businesses, and with only take-out or delivery service, their ability to generate revenue off of alcohol sales has been depleted.
An group of business owners is seeking to change that. They've set up an online petition that would allow them to sell "to-go" alcohol to their take-out customers.
Here's what they're proposing: If an establishment already has a license to sell alcohol for on-site consumption, they would be able to sell that same alcohol in to-go cups for off-site consumption. (i.e. - if you could order a beer or glass of wine to go with a pizza that you normally would consume in a restaurants dining room, you would be able to get that same beer or wine in a to-go container when you picked up that pizza as take-out).
A similar action has already been enacted in New York State.
The organizers of this petition are only looking for the change to occur during the current COVID-19 situation; they're not seeking long-term change to the liquor laws.