Third Liquor Store Coming to Loganville

A third liquor store is coming to Loganville. 

The Loganville City Council approved 5-1 the motion to grant Ronald Dwight Harrison an alcohol license at a special-called meeting Thursday (Dec. 19), according to City Manager Bill Jones. 

After passing the alcohol referendum in November 2012, the council originally agreed to issue only two liquor licenses, one for Gwinnett County and the other for Walton County. Those two have already been issued, with Harrison's proposed liquor store being the second license approved for the Gwinnett side.

Before the approval, Harrison was among one of the six applicants who were denied licenses, so Harrison and three other applicants appealed the decision.  

Gwinnett Judge Ronnie K. Batchelor sent down an order for the council to either issue the license to Harrison or put the two qualifiers from Gwinnett County into a lottery, according to Councilwoman Michelle Lynch. So at Thursday's special-called meeting, the council went ahead and approved the license.

Lynch was the only council member to vote against it.

"The folks in the city are very cautious when it comes to various alcohol outlets in the city," she told Loganville-Grayson Patch. "I felt very strongly that when folks voted yes to have a package store, they probably would get comfortable with one, maybe a little bit leery with two. I find it very hard to believe that they voted yes to get three at one time."

Lynch said that if the council had voted against the judge's order, the city could have appealed. Money was available to do so using insurance riders, and if the city needed more, additional funds could have been pulled from reserves. 

"I think to dip in to reserves to manage the growth of our city immediately is what we've been asked to do for the people of Loganville," she said.  

She added: "I felt initially we wanted to see one in each county for our citizens, and now all of the sudden we have the potential for two in Gwinnett, which is actually the smaller portion of our city, and one in Walton. It didn't sound logistically smart to me, so that really gave me hesitation. I'd rather invest our money in managing the growth. That's so important to me."