Groups differ on projected revenue from Sunday alcohol sales

FLORENCE — Both sides on the battle over Sunday alcohol sales in Florence say the city’s additional revenue projections validate their calculations.

A referendum on this November’s ballot in the city of Florence applies to sales of alcoholic drinks for on-premises consumption, not packaged alcohol sales.

Strengthening Florence Families Chairman Gary Finklea said he estimates Florence would gain less than $300,000 a year in city hospitality taxes and business license fees from Sunday alcohol sales.

The Florence Hospitality Association, meanwhile, says Florence would receive about $780,000 in new tax revenue, plus an additional $93,000 in annual license fees if 30 restaurants pay a $3,100 annual license fee to sell alcohol on Sundays.

“The total revenue for this is going to education, to roads, ... to tourism,” local hospitality association chairman Tim Norwood said.

In making its calculations, Florence examined only revenues that come directly to the city.

The city’s projections of additional hospitality tax and city business license fees, plus a potential $93,000 in Sunday alcohol licenses, equal $261,129 in estimated new revenue.

The city didn’t calculate any additional collections of the 6-percent sales tax, the 1-percent local option sales tax for property tax relief, or the 1-percent countywide sales tax for road projects. The hospitality association included those in its projections.

The Hospitality Association of South Carolina said this summer that allowing restaurants to sell alcohol on Sundays would increase sales by $650,000 a month.

Finklea said he’s also questioning that estimation because the hospitality association hasn’t shown how it was calculated.

Hospitality Association of South Carolina President Tom Sponseller said the association arrived at that figure by talking with groups of restaurants of varying sizes where referendums like this have passed, and talked with them about what their sales were before and after the referendums passed.

Sponseller said the association found out they generate about an extra $5,000 a week, which amounts to the $650,000 figure. About 85 percent of the extra money came from food sales, he said.

Norwood said the statewide association has examined sales at various restaurants and has 55 years’ experience in making such projections.

Using the $650,000 figure, Florence calculates it would receive $152,880 in additional city hospitality fees from Sunday alcohol sales. The city charges a 2-percent hospitality tax on prepared food and beverages. The projection factors out a 2-percent discount offered for timely filed hospitality tax returns.

The city also calculated a possible $15,249 in additional business license revenue.

The $93,000 in Sunday license fees would be paid to the state, and 100 percent of it would return to Florence.

Strengthening Florence Families says the $650,000 in additional sales wouldn’t be “new” revenue, but money that residents could spend on groceries, gasoline or bills instead of alcohol.

“It’s not money that the city’s losing, so that’s another fallacy and another thing that makes (the hospitality association’s) math fuzzy,” Finklea said.

Norwood said he expects people from outside the county would begin stopping in Florence rather than bypassing the town for Santee or other municipalities that sell alcohol on Sundays.

“We are looking for tourists — it doesn’t have to be someone from Ohio,” but it could be a person from a neighboring county, he said.

Norwood also said this week that 42 private clubs in Florence County already sell alcohol on Sundays.