BENTON, IL – (William McPherson, Benton Gazette. Please click on the link above for the full story. Here is an excerpt below.)
Local restaurateurs spoke up at the Monday Benton city council meeting urging the City Council to legalize the sale of liquor on Sundays.
Carlos Pacheco, owner of the local La Fiesta Mexican restaurants, and Christopher Betts of Joe’s Pizza spoke during audience comments in favor of allowing restaurants to sell liquor on Sundays.
“We’re losing taxable dollars from liquor on Sundays. And I don’t mean the $2.25 beer that you guys are thinking, which isn’t a big deal, but the fact that if there’s two families getting together and the two dads want to go grab a beer with their dinner, that’s a total of $4.50 worth of alcohol, but those two families together are going to bring $80 of taxable money to Benton, but instead they’re going to go to Applebees [in West City] to grab a steak and a beer, because they can do so on Sundays,” Betts said.
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The affects of Hurricane Harvey will be to our south and east. The rain chances around here are slim (20%). Points to the south and east of here, the rain chances will increase. There has been heavy rain for the counties along the Ohio river last night in Southern Illinois.
