I understand your concerns about the extended bar hours and excise tax on alcohol here in the district – they are valid concerns. However, you have failed to take into account the small, local business which produce alcohol in this city. Folks from our 3 small breweries, one future distillery, and alcohol distributors will bear the brunt of this tax. “6 cents” sounds like nothing when purchasing a “drink”, however for a brewery, that will be just over 700% increase in their tax bills. The current tax for a keg of beer is a little less than $3, with this new tax, it will be $22. If this tax increase passes, it will be local business owners that will hurt. Do you think it’s fair to put small operations out of business?

There is nothing “world class” about being sh*tfaced at 4:00 in the morning. There is nothing “world class” about wanting to keep drinking at that hour – when was the last time you saw a photo of someone who’d been drinking all night that was taken at 4am and thought to yourself “Oh, S/he looks SO classy!!”? That’s not “world class”, Mr. Lee, that’s ALCOHOLISM. Graham’s proposal is not about converting the hospitality industry into an ATM, it’s about asking those who use that industry to pay their fair share. Six cents per drink helps cover the costs of paramedics to scrape people off the sidewalk after DUI crashes and off their bathroom floors when they pull an Amy Winehouse. Six cents per drink helps cover the costs of police (which are not paid for by clubs unless they voluntarily pay a reimbursable police detail, which Councilmember Evans introduced as a requirement months ago that Graham won’t bring to a vote) to control rowdy patrons. Six cents per drink helps fund Health and Human Services and their programs to overcome addiction issues.

Now, not allowing liquor sales on Sunday? That’s just foolish. If you can buy beer and wine at a store, hard liquor at bars and restaurants, and consume hard liquor you bought any other day of the week at your home on a Sunday, you might as well be able to buy it on Sunday too. You’re right on that. But sorry, Mr. Lee, you obviously have never lived within a block or two of a place with a liquor license, and you’re wrong on the rest of it. One nightclub in Shaw has already seen, in the past eight months, a brawl inside that resulted in arrests, two young men stabbed and left in critical condition, and just this month a drunken patron who hit a Metro PD officer with her car when he tried to stop her from leaving the scene. We don’t need an extra seven hours of this in the middle of the night every night of the week in Shaw. If you want it and think it’s such a swell idea, just reply to this comment with your home address and I’ll make the flyers to let the club-goers know the after party is in YOUR front yard, not mine.