Craig Daily Press

Craig — The Craig City Council’s search for a new way to handle liquor license violations took a step forward Tuesday night, though a longer march remains, councilors said.

At their regular meeting, councilors saw their first example of what an administrative hearing process might look like, which officials said gave liquor distributors a defined schedule of punishments while also allowing for circumstantial discretion.

Possible violations include selling to minors or a person already intoxicated.

Councilors have said an administrative hearing procedure would allow for more consistency in prosecuting liquor license violations. Sentences can vary too much as the council takes on new members, they added.

The council looked at sentencing guidelines from the city of Thornton, located within the Denver-metro area. The attorney for the Safeway store in Craig, which failed the recent wave of Craig Police Department compliance checks, provided the document, City Attorney Kenny Wohl said.

Policies include set parameters for offenders, such as a first offense carrying a sentencing range from one to 14 business days.

Councilor Terry Carwile noted that Thornton officials suspend liquor licenses on the first offense, where traditionally officials here offer a deferred suspension.

“They don’t stay the whole suspension, even for first offenders,” Wohl said. “They say that sends the wrong message.”

In the event the council adopts such a procedure as Thornton, the city would hire an administrative hearing officer to rule on violations and sentence offenders. The council would retain its position as the Liquor Licensing Authority, Wohl said.

Lennie and Lori Gillam, who own Stockman’s Liquor together, appeared at the council meeting, though their store did not fail recent compliance checks.

They said that if the council increases penalties, or chooses a one-penalty-fits-all system, local stores would probably suffer when the last compliance checks showed it was the bigger stores, such as Wal-Mart, Safeway and Kum & Go, that have the most problems selling alcohol to minors.

“If you close (the bigger stores) a week, two weeks, it’s not going to phase them,” Lennie said. “If you close me for a two weeks, that going to put us out.”

The discretion afforded the hearing officer hopefully will address those concerns, Wohl said.

“I’m afraid there’s not a perfect solution to the question of the big stores and the smaller ones,” he said. “That’s why we have the administrative hearing officer.”

The council plans to see a draft set of violation penalties in the future, and coordinate reviewing the draft with area liquor distributors before finalizing plans.