No alcohol sales before noon on St. Patrick's Day - ABC 12 – WJRT – Flint, MI

(03/12/13) - It's no malarkey! People in Flint won't be going on the tear before noon on Saint Patty's Day.

The state won't let Flint lift its ban on liquor sales before noon on the day most people start celebrating at the top of the morning.

Although Flint adopted a resolution to allow a one time St. Patrick's Day exception to the Sunday morning alcohol ban, the Michigan Liquor Control Commission says the city can't take a one day exception.

That means that bars and restaurants won't be able to sell alcohol at 7 in the morning on St. Patrick's Day. They'll have to wait until noon to do so.

Many managers of restaurants aren't happy that the state won't let the city lift its ban. They fear that it could hurt their sales.

"It's just putting kind of a crush on that because people will go else where and hopefully they will come back down here after noon, but maybe they'll be happy where they are and they'll stay there. It's just something we're going to have to figure out, but we are pushing for the food to be our number one seller," said Patti Bergstrom, manager of Blackstone's.

"With all the short time frame coming up, St. Patrick's Day being Sunday, the earliest they could have voted on it being yesterday, Monday, and then the process for businesses interested in doing it, having to go through an application process, $160 fee, for five hours of liquor sells, it did not seem like enough of a benefit to trouble people with," said Jason Lorenz, public information officer for the city of Flint.

Restaurant managers say St. Patrick's Day is one of their busiest days of the year.