Request By:
Mr. Gerald J. Munoff, Director
Administrative Services
Kentucky Department for Libraries & Archives
300 Coffee Tree Road
P.O. Box 537
Frankfort, Kentucky 40602-0537
Opinion
Opinion By: David L. Armstrong, Attorney General; By: Suzanne Guss, Assistant Attorney General
This is in response to your request for an opinion of the Office of the Attorney General as to whether the Department for Libraries and Archives may serve or sell alcoholic beverages on the Department's premises for consumption. You state that alcoholic beverages would be served or sold in conjunction with receptions and governmental functions held during nonworking hours.
No statute expressly forbids the sale or consumption of alcoholic beverages at the Department for Libraries and Archives premises. The statutory provision applicable to your question is KRS 244.020(1), which provides:
"No person shall drink any alcoholic beverage in any public place, in or upon any passenger coach, street car or other vehicle commonly used for the transportation of passengers, or in or about any depot, platform or waiting room." (Emphasis added).
This statute governs consumption, but not sale of alcoholic beverages in a public place. A "public place" has been defined in KRS 525.010(2), as follows:
"A place to which the public or a substantial group of persons has access and includes but is not limited to highways, transportation facilities, schools, places of amusements, parks, places of business, playgrounds and hallways, lobbies and other portions of apartment houses and hotels not constituting rooms or apartments designed for actual residence."
In Lewis v. Commonwealth, Ky., 247 S.W. 749, 751 (1923) "public place" was defined as:
". . . a place exposed to the public, and where the public gather together or pass to and fro, and the building referred to means a public one, and belonging to or used by the public for the transaction of public or quasi-public business, such as a school-house, courthouse, or other similar one . . . ."
Under this definition the Libraries and Archives building is a "public place. " Consumption of alcoholic beverages by government or nongovernmental groups at this location would violate KRS 244.020(1). However, should an individual or group obtain a license to sell alcoholic beverages at these premises, such beverages may be sold and consumed on those premises. The presence of a license to sell alcoholic beverages constitutes an exception permitting alcoholic beverages to be consumed on the premises where purchased, assuming the license is a distilled spirits and wine retail drink license or a malt beverage license. (For example, a distilled spirits and wine retail package license authorizes sale only for consumption off the licensed premises.) That issuance of the proper license authorizes consumption of alcoholic beverages on the premises where purchased may be inferred from KRS 243.020(3):
"No person, conducting a place of business patronized by the public, who does not hold a license to sell distilled spirits and wine by the drink, shall permit any person to sell, barter, loan, give away or drink distilled spirits or wine on the premises of his place of business. "
As this office stated in OAG 78-665, attached hereto, proscription of the consumption of alcoholic beverages on properly licensed premises based upon KRS 244.020(1) would be contrary to the purpose of the licensing laws.
We trust this information has satisfactorily answered your inquiry. If you have any additional questions, please contact us.