Brookings city councilors voted 6-0 Tuesday evening on an ordinance creating new restaurant-only liquor licenses here, but officials here have yet to decide how much local business owners will be paying for the permits .

Senate Bill 126, which paved the way for South Dakota cities to issue the new liquor licenses, says the price in each community should be based on the price of the last liquor license sold there in 2007.

But city officials have questioned if that section of the law should apply to Brookings because businesses here do not own their licenses, instead using operating agreements leased by the city.

Ordinance No. 30-08 , the one passed in the council chambers this week, varied significantly from the version presented for a first reading at a council meeting earlier this month. After visiting with state officials, the city attorney changed Brookings' ordinance to mirror the new state law, which went into affect July 1. Concerns about ordinance

Local attorney Don McCarty said on Tuesday that he had concerns about the proposed ordinance , even the newest version.

McCarty wanted to know why the Council was passing an ordinance when it was still waiting for a South Dakota attorney general's opinion on how Brookings should interpret SB 126.

He added that the Council has not gotten a public recommendation from the liquor ad hoc committee on how to proceed, and both state and city officials have cautioned the group to move slowly on passing a city ordinance. "I know there have been ad hoc committee meetings. I've been trying to track what's happened with regard to SB 126, and I haven't ever seen the recommendations of that board or any action by this Council based on recommendations . So that's one question that I have for the Council, as far as maybe we have the cart before the horse. "¦

"I think the prudent thing for this Council to do is to hold off on the passage of an ordinance all together until answers are provided by the Department of Revenue, and if you choose not to do that, the next best thing would be to pass an ordinance that purely mirrors what SB 126 says rather than adopting any language that varies from it."

City Attorney Steve Britzman said the new ordinance is consistent with the state statute. Mayor Scott Munsterman added that the city will not get an attorney general's opinion on the issue. He's recently met with the attorney general, and "we both agreed that it probably would be in the best interest to go ahead and suspend the opinion at this time and to just move ahead with the ordinance.

"With the time table that it would take for them to respond to it and just with the discussion that we had, that was really what we came to in terms of a conclusion."

The fee for the new restaurantonly liquor licenses has to be set, by resolution, within 90 days of passing Ordinance No. 30-08 . The minimum price the city can charge business owners is $1 for every person living in the city, based on the most recent population figures from the U.S. Census Bureau. Can be referred

Councilor Mike Bartley noted that the ordinance passed at this week's meeting is referable, and if that happens, it would most likely be on the November ballot. He added that if voters go through that process and also challenge the liquor license fee yet to be set by the city, it could be as long as a year before the restaurant licenses are in use here. "No matter what we do, this is not going to be rushed. It's going to be a long process as we walk through this and all the possibilities that could happen all the way down the line," Bartley said.

He told McCarty that the liquor committee previously directed the city attorney to put together an ordinance and present it to the City Council.

"I appreciate your concerns, but I don't think we acted inappropriately , and I hope that people will look at it that way."

Councilor Tom Bezdichek was absent from Tuesday's meeting.

Contact Jill Fier at jfier@brookingsregister.com.