Among the items to be discussed at the informal workshop session at next week's regular February meeting of the Dade County Commission are two proposed ballot questions concerning Sunday sales of alcohol.
The questions--proposed by District 2 Commissioner Phillip Hartline, who won election in 2018 over 16-year incumbent Scottie PIttman, partly on a platform of reforming Dade's lingering blue laws--would allow voters to weigh in on (a) whether package sales of alcohol should be allowed on Sundays in Dade and (b) whether restaurants should be allowed to serve alcholic beverages on Sunday.
Ballot questions, or "straw polls," are nonbinding; that is, a yes vote on Sunday sales would not obligate the county commission to change Dade's liquor ordinance to allow for such sales. But straw polls do give county commissioners an idea of what the voters want and sometimes inspire them to introduce concrete measures to bring about the same. It was a straw poll question that led--eventually--to the referendum in 2016 that allowed county restaurants to serve alcohol.
Also on the agenda for next Thursday--that's Feb. 6, at 6 p.m. in the Administrative Building--is action on Dade's proposed heavy industry, or zoning, ordinance. A public hearing on that landmark ordinance is to be held this Thursday, Jan. 30, also at 6 p.m., and also in the Admin Building.
The agenda lists an announcement of one more important event: The second-ever "Joint Governmental Work Session," the pan-Dade meeting of city and county governments with the Dade Water and Industrial Development authorities. That meeting is Thursday, March 26, 2020 at 6:00 p.m. in--you guessed it--the Dade Administrative Building.
The first such meeting, which occured Sept. 26, was well attended by government officials but almost completely snubbed by the public.
Here is a copy of the agenda for next Thursday's regular February County Commission meeting.
