As Election Day nears, many Minneapolis restaurateurs are hoping cocktail-loving voters take notice of a question at the top of the ballot on Nov. 6.
Question 1 asks: Shall the Minneapolis City Charter be amended to remove from the City Charter the area and spacing requirements pertaining to liquor licenses?
Translation: Should Minneapolis allow restaurants anywhere in the city to apply for a liquor license?
Currently, only restaurants within a 7-acre zone surrounding downtown can serve liquor. The rest are restricted to wine and beer — unless they go through a costly process of lobbying the Legislature for an exemption. Only a handful have done so.
In the age of craft cocktails, that's a disadvantage for all those neighborhood restaurants in south Minneapolis, for example.
If you're wondering why mixology is a practice restricted to just 7 acres, you wouldn't be alone.
"I've been asked that question several times and I can't get to the bottom of it," said Matt Perry, a Minneapolis charter commissioner who brought the issue to the ballot. He's working on the Yes on 1 campaign (yeson1mpls.com) with Citizens for a Modern Minneapolis, the same group that campaigned to reform other "outdated" alcohol regulations, some of which date back to Prohibition.
"It's a mystery" when this one originally wound up in the city charter, Perry said. There has been no opposition to the campaign, either from other restaurants or from neighborhood groups, he said.
