Request By:
Hon. Michael R. Moloney
State Senator
Thirteenth District
605 Bank of Commerce Building
Lexington, KY 40507
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Thomas C. Jacobs, Deputy Attorney General
This is in response to your letter of May 25, 1978, wherein you seek an opinion of this office as to the proper construction to be accorded KRS 243.230 in light of the amendments to other sections of KRS Chapter 243 accomplished by Senate Bill 76 which was enacted by the 1978 Regular Session of the General Assembly.
Senate Bill 76 amended KRS 243.230 so as to create a restaurant wine license which is now available to an applicant who owns a restaurant in a wet area that seats fifty or more persons and which obtains more than 50% of its gross annual income from the sale of food. The question has been raised as to whether a restaurant wine license may be issued to a restaurant located within a city of the fourth class which has held a local option election and which has voted to go wet. It has been suggested that KRS 243.230 would prohibit the issuance of such a license.
It is the opinion of this office that Senate Bill 76 created a separate and distinct license known as the Restaurant Wine License and that such a license is separate and distinct from the type of licenses anticipated by the provisions of KRS 243.230. We, therefore, conclude that KRS 243.230 is not grounds for authority to refuse to issue a restaurant wine license in a city of the fourth class which has held a local option election and which has voted to go wet.