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Committee hears testimony on allowing alcohol sales at municipally owned performing-arts, convention and sports complexes
Summary
Representatives and public witnesses debated House Bill 4000, which would permit certain municipally owned performing-arts, convention and sports complexes to obtain licenses to sell beer, wine and liquor on site; sponsor said bill was tailored to the Charleston Gaillard Auditorium; meeting ran out of time without a vote.
A Judiciary Committee meeting on April 3 took testimony on House Bill 4000, a measure to amend the code of laws to allow certain large, municipally owned performing-arts, convention and sports complexes to sell beer, wine and liquor on their premises. The committee did not finish consideration and will reconvene Tuesday to continue discussion.
Representative Smith, a sponsor of the bill, told the committee the measure was drafted to allow municipally owned venues that meet specific size and tourism-promotion criteria to obtain alcohol permits. "Let's create an unfettered open fair marketplace," Representative Smith said, and she cited the Charleston Gaillard Auditorium as the impetus for the proposal. Smith described the bill's definition of qualifying venues as those owned by a municipality, with a performance hall seating at least 1,600 and at least 12,000 square feet of meeting/exhibition space that engages in tourism promotion.
Opponents raised public-safety concerns. Laura Hudson, who identified herself as executive director of the South Carolina Scribe Victims Council, urged the committee to oppose HB 4000 on public-safety grounds and cited state alcohol-related harms: "We're number 1, number 2 in DUI fatalities," she said, listing driving deaths, alcohol poisoning and other health harms tied to excessive drinking and stressing the prevalence of on-premise and off-premise alcohol licenses statewide.
Committee members questioned sponsors about definitions, scope and safeguards. Representative Jason Luck asked who operates the Gaillard Auditorium and whether the operator is a 501(c)(3). Representative McRavy and others probed whether the bill would apply broadly to municipally owned theatres and concert halls and whether servers would be required to have training to prevent over-service. Representative Smith pointed to prior, unanimous committee work on liquor-liability bills and said training and liability provisions have been considered in related legislation.
A committee member noted the bill is limited to municipally owned facilities that meet the listed seat and square-foot thresholds and said the North Charleston Performing Arts Complex meets those criteria as an example. No formal action was taken on HB 4000. The chair said the committee had run out of time and would meet again Tuesday morning to continue consideration.
