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City manager presents amendments to alcohol ordinance to include movie theater and convocation center
Summary
City Manager Jeff Baker presented proposed amendments to Ordinance 2025-07 to clarify school-distance rules, allow manager discretion on proximity surveys, require adjoining restaurants for licenses, limit sampling to restaurant premises, exempt the Clayton County Public Schools Convocation Center, and add fee categories for movie theaters and convocation centers.
City Manager Jeff Baker presented proposed amendments to Ordinance 2025-07 at the City of Morrow work session on Oct. 14, 2025, saying the changes were intended to correct and clarify provisions of a previously passed alcohol ordinance that has not yet been signed.
Baker directed the council’s attention to redline changes in the packet and identified six principal revisions: adding language about "zoned schools and colleges" to address conflicts with temporary church locations; giving the City Manager discretion to require distance surveys when proximity to a school or college is unclear; clarifying that establishments seeking an alcohol license must include a restaurant as defined in Code Section 9-22(17); limiting sampling and tasting to the premises of the required adjoining restaurant; exempting businesses located within the Clayton County Public Schools Convocation Center at 1300 Southlake Circle from school-distance restrictions; and adding a licensing-fee category for "Movie Theater or Convocation Center business."
Baker said the changes were necessary to bring a local movie theater and the convocation center—both currently serving alcoholic beverages and food—into compliance with the city’s licensing rules. The amendment would allow those facilities to apply for alcohol licenses without being automatically barred by the ordinance’s school-distance provisions, while reserving sampling activities to the adjoining restaurant area.
No formal vote on the amendment is recorded in the Oct. 14 work session minutes. The agenda listed approval of the meeting agenda and the Sept. 23, 2025 minutes; the work session was opened and adjourned by general consent. The ordinance amendment was presented for council review; the minutes do not document final adoption during this work session.
If the council advances the amendment for adoption, the changes would alter how the city evaluates licensing applications near school properties and would add a fee classification for movie theaters and convocation-center businesses. The work session minutes were later attested and approved on Oct. 28, 2025.
