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Sierra Kondos

Special to The Orange Leader

BRIDGE CITY — The Bridge City’s City Council held a workshop discussing a local optional liquor election Tuesday at City Hall.

This would allow local businesses to serve mixed drinks and avoid the complications of private membership clubs.

Bridge City Mayor David Rutledge said numerous business owners showed interest in pursuing this endeavor, but only one owner showed up to the City Council meeting and left before the workshop began.

“Some of our council members received inquiries from local businesses about what it takes to have a local optional election to allow mixed drink in their establishments,” Rutledge said. “So, we got to researching it a little bit and the other night, we had a workshop on it, and I was hoping more of the local people would have been there. There was only one owner there, and he left before the workshop. So, I don’t know how much interest there is, but we’ve researched it and wanted to give that information to him, and we’ve got a bunch of information we can give to the local folks if they’re interested.”

However, Rutledge said it’s not something the city is pushing.

“We’d like to see it move forward if there’s enough interest,” he said. “It is an economic development tool and that’s the main reason we were looking into it.”

Rutledge said this would avoid the complications of private membership clubs.

“This makes it to where they don’t have to worry about private memberships,” he said. “And asking people if they have their membership cards with them and keeping track of them and doing all that stuff? Or if one of the wait staff forgets to ask about their membership card and it turns out to be an undercover TABC guy, you know, and then they bust him for that. So, it’s takes all that away from it.”

The initiative must be driven by local citizens and business owners, not the city council, the mayor said.

“There’s a lot of criteria they got to meet to do that, to just to put in the application, they must advertise in the paper,” he said. “You know, the legal advertisement thing, to say, we’re going to do this, we’re going to go out for a local option election petition, and that’s the start of the application process. Then citizens apply for a petition, which, if approved, must be signed by a certain number of city residents within a 60-day window. The petition must be submitted 78 days before the election, which is typically held in May. The city cannot actively promote this but can provide information and guidance.”

In other words, Rutledge says, they need to have their application in right now if they’re going to get it on the May 2025 ballot.

“It probably won’t happen until the following year, but they need to get ready for it anyway.

For more information, contact Bridge City’s City Hall at 409-735-6801.