Photo by Maryland Route 5

If for some reason you’re hard-pressed for a bottle of rum on a Sunday—mojitos, anyone?—you’ll have to escape the confines of D.C. to legally purchase it. While Montgomery County and Virginia allow Sunday sales of liquor, D.C. remains among the few places that still bans it—for now.

Legislation introduced by Councilmember Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) yesterday would finally do away with the city’s Blue Laws, allowing Class A retailers—your local beer, wine and spirits emporium—to open their doors on Sundays. The proposal comes as part of a broader re-write of the city’s liquor laws, and follows the suggestions issued earlier this year by an Alcoholic Beverage Control Board working group.

Oddly enough, one of the groups that’s not too keen on the change is liquor retailers themselves. At a recent hearing, Rick Genderson, owner of Schneider’s of Capitol Hill, argued that any potential revenue he would see from Sunday sales would be negligible and would likely cut into the sales of small beer and wine stores. Additionally, he said, he feared that a change to the Sunday restrictions would allow big-box retailers to apply for liquor licenses, causing “economic devastation” for the mom-and-pop stores that make up a majority of the city’s liquor retailers. Finally, they complained, working seven days a week was a hardship most liquor retailers weren’t too keen on.

Some community activists have complained that liquor stores are nuisances as is, so allowing them to open on Sunday would only create more problems. They proposed that ANCs be allowed to veto any Sunday hours, but that’s not included in Graham’s proposal. According to the legislation, any additional tax revenues taken in from Sunday liquor sales—D.C. estimates them at $710,000 a year—will go to fund reimbursable details, the off-duty police officers that provide security at clubs and certain neighborhoods.

Graham’s legislation also includes a number of proposals that will make local drinkers and bar-owners happy, including permitting supermarkets and brew pubs to sell growlers of beer, creating a new wine pub permit that will allow establishments to make and sell their own wine, and clarifying what type of residents can have standing to protest the issuance of a liquor license. (And something about butts and anuses—seriously.)

Earlier this year Graham led the charge in opposing a proposal that would have allowed D.C. bars to stay open an hour later than usual. An amended version eventually passed, allowing for the extended hours on 19 weekends a year. Graham also proposed raising the alcohol excise tax, but that idea hasn’t yet moved.