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Plans for a boutique hotel right by Salt Lake City’s Sugar House Park could get boozier with a newly proposed update to Utah’s liquor laws.
HB597, the annual catchall alcohol bill introduced Tuesday, includes a provision to change how close a hotel-based bar or restaurant that serves alcohol can be to a park.
Current law requires any bar, liquor store or restaurant that serves alcohol to be located at least 600 feet (walking distance) or 200 feet (in a straight line) from a park, school or place of worship.
The new bill would create an exception, allowing any “local authority” — like a city or town — to waive that rule for a hotel bar or hotel restaurant that wanted to open near a park.
The change would not apply to bars and restaurants that aren’t in hotels, and the distance rules would remain in place near schools and places of worship.
Such a change could affect plans for the proposed hotel on the western boundary of Sugar House Park, at 2111 S. 1300 East, the site of the old Sizzler restaurant. Right now, if a hotel restaurant sought a liquor license there, the location would be closer to the park than current proximity rules allow.
(Magnum Hotel Management via Salt Lake City) A rendering shows plans for a seven-story hotel next to Sugar House Park.
The developer, Magnus Commercial Properties, has requested a city zoning change to build the 145-room hotel, which would rise 90 feet — more than double the 40-foot maximum height now allowed there.
City planners recommended approval of the zoning shift last October. The Salt Lake City Council has final say on the zoning change.
More changes possible to Utah liquor law
In addition to the proposed hotel change, HB597 would set up stiffer penalties for people caught buying alcohol for minors, making it a class A misdemeanor even if the buyer didn’t know the recipient was underage.
The liquor bill would also spare restaurants from having to card drinking patrons over 35, reversing a rule that went into effect Jan. 1.
Another bill, HB59, takes similar aim at that restaurant requirement. A House committee passed it unanimously Friday; it awaits a vote from the full House.
The broader liquor bill would also include the following changes:
• It would make the state-appointed agency that oversees the Point of the Mountain development a “local authority,” meaning it would have the same oversight over liquor licenses as a city or town.
• It would reformulate how restaurants count their food sales (in order to reach the 70% required to maintain a restaurant liquor license). For mixed drinks, only the cost of the alcohol would be considered, not the price of nonalcoholic ingredients or the service charge, said Michelle Schmitt, spokesperson for the Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Services (DABS)
• It would give the DABS’ liquor commission more discretion when it decides whether to deny a liquor license, depending on factors like proximity and locality, plus “any other factor the commission considers necessary.”
• It would remove restrictions on what kind of scanning devices bars and restaurants have to buy in order to check customers’ IDs.
• And it would adopt into law a policy the DABS instituted last year that requires cash purchases to be rounded to the nearest nickel. The policy was a response to the U.S. Treasury ending production of the penny.
— Salt Lake Tribune staff writer Tony Semerad contributed to this story.