GOOD HOPE — The city of Good Hope will allow alcohol sales on Sundays beginning July 4.

The city council passed an amendment to its alcohol ordinance during Monday night’s meeting that will allow the sale of alcohol within the city on Sundays from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. All other parts of the ordinance, such as any rules and regulations regarding the sale of alcohol and the rest of the week’s alcohol sale hours remain the same.

The council passed the ordinance amendment after suspending the regular rules of procedure, meaning the ordinance could be adopted without a first and second reading. Councilmen Greg Brown and Eric Phillips were not present at the meeting.

Councilwoman Susan Eller said the state legislature passed a law in 2019 that allow municipalities and counties to pass an ordinance allowing Sunday alcohol sales if alcohol sales for the rest of the week had already been approved by a referendum of its residents. Good Hope residents voted in favor of alcohol sales in a 2012 referendum.

There have been other municipalities around the state that have already approved Sunday sales over the past two years, she said.

“This isn’t something that’s new,” she said. “We’re not the first people that’s done it.”

The ordinance amendment will go in effect on the first Sunday after it has been adopted and published, which will be on July 4.

Eller, who also works for the Cullman Economic Development Agency, said the allowing of Sunday alcohol sales should help the city in attracting new restaurants and possibly new retail opportunities.

“This would be an economic development driver,” she said.

Eller said Cullman County has attracted most of the restaurants that were willing to come without Sunday alcohol sales, and there have been several that have asked about the city but decided not to come because of the lack of Sunday sales.

Mayor Jerry Bartlett said Good Hope is centered around Interstate 65, and with the new Exit 305 just beginning to see development, Sunday sales could help bring in even more development to that area.

“This is just another way of enticing people to come and join us in Good Hope,” he said.

Bartlett said there are already Sunday alcohol sales allowed in places just down the road from Good Hope, such as on Smith Lake or at Terri Pines, so it shouldn’t make a big difference among the city’s residents that sales are allowed in the city.

“I don’t think most people think of it as a real big deal as they used to,” he said.

At the beginning of the meeting, Cabin Fever Beverages owner Kolby Lawrence and Stash House Restaurant co-owner Preston Prewett spoke to the council in favor of Sunday alcohol sales.

Lawrence said Good Hope’s proximity to Smith Lake and the large number of travelers who are going up and down I-65 on the way to vacation bring in a lot of business to Cabin Fever, and allowing Sunday sales would add even more business for him and revenues to the city.

“I just think that’s another aspect of some extra tax revenue that we’re missing out on,” he said.

Council members also pointed at the thousands of dollars that the city gives each year to the city’s schools, a school grant program and purchases like the property that now contains Good Hope Pharmacy as things that are possible because of alcohol revenues.

“We’ve done a lot of good things,” Bartlett said.