City leaders want residents to vote on the proposal during an already scheduled special election June 28. That's faster than the Coalition to Preserve Cedar Hills' initiative petition calls for. It wants to let voters decide the question in November.

The June 28 election also will allow residents to vote on refinancing the city's struggling $6.4 million golf course.

“The council feels the sooner we all find out the will of the majority the better,” Councilman Darin Lowder said this week.

Blue laws and booze have been big news in Cedar Hills since council members last month nixed proposals to ban beer and stores - once the city gets one - from doing business on Sundays.

The coalition formed soon thereafter. Its members say most residents are teetotalers who shun Sabbath shopping and believe such practices have no place in the northern Utah County community.

Mayor Mike McGee does not see it that way.

“The [council's] thinking is that there is less than a majority of residents that want to ban beer and Sunday operations,” he said. “So if we put that issue on the ballot and have people determine that, we can put that particular thorn in our side to rest.”

Not likely, counters coalition member Ken Cromar. He says the coalition already has 150 of the 393 signatures required to put the issue before voters in the general election. If residents are able to vote earlier in June, he does not expect the outcome to be any different.

“The mayor may be out of touch with reality,” Cromar said. “The will of the people is clear by the vast majority of those approached eagerly signing the petitions.”

A Smith's supermarket, which likely would sell beer and stay open on Sundays, is planned for 18 acres on the corner of 4800 West and Cedar Hills Drive, between Cedar Ridge Elementary School and Lone Peak High School.

Cromar says that would be a violation of community standards.

“It is reasonable to expect a grocery store builder to respect the values of the community they want to financially profit from,” he said.

Opponents of a ban worry about losing Smith's and the tax revenue the store could generate. Lowder says many residents are tired of having to shop in nearby Highland, American Fork and Pleasant Grove.

While not as bitter as the spat over beer and Sunday shopping, the golf-course refinancing also has a bad aftertaste for some. Voters will decide June 28 whether to switch from the lease-revenue bond used to build the course to a general obligation bond.

McGee says a general obligation bond would carry a lower interest rate and save the city money. Even so, residents may have to step up and pay higher taxes to cover the $223,780 in red ink the course racked up in its first fiscal year of operation and the $300,000 in losses projected for the current fiscal year.

meddington@sltrib.com