SIDNEY — Sunday sales of wine, mixed beverages and spirituous liquor will be up for consideration for Sidney registers voters of precinct eight as well as for voters in the village of Anna on the Tuesday, March 17, Primary Election ballot.
Placing the local liquor option for a particular location in the 3rd Ward-A/precinct eight on the ballot, required 35% of registered voter’s signatures, said Frank Catanzarite, co-owner of Tavolo Modern Italian Restaurant. The effort had to begin at least 90 days prior to Tuesday’s election in order to get the issue on the ballot.
“The requirement was, I believe, to get 135 signature (on the petition). We ended up getting 175 or 180. And the reason we did that was under the advice of the Board of Elections to get more (signatures than you need), because they have to validate every signature. When they go through the validation process, if a name isn’t legible or they signed it and they are not at the right address, that signature could be eliminated,” Catanzarite said. “So that’s the reason that you make sure you get an excess of what the requirement is.”
Currently no sale of alcohol is permitted in precinct eight on Sunday. Only one other restaurant is in Tavolo’s area, but it’s not open on Sunday, Catanzarite said. Any other businesses would have to follow Tavolo’s path to sell alcohol, because, if approved, the permit would only cover the Italian restaurant’s particular location, he explained.
The Catanzarite family is seeking the ability to sell wine, mixed beverages and spirituous liquor between 11 a.m. and midnight on Sundays.
“Our intention is to serve brunch on Sundays, as well as looking at doing family-style meals on Sunday evenings,” Catanzarite said. “The way the restaurant is designed, we have outside seating as well as inside seating, so we think there is an opportunity to take advantage of that outside seating during favorable weather.”
“I think people are looking forward to another dining option in the downtown area; geography makes the difference. And also its a little something different than what Sidney has offered in the past,” he said when asked if they are hearing positive feedback about Sunday sales.
The restaurant was scheduled to open June 1, but the mild weather helped speed construction along and moved up the open date to sometime in April or May.
In the village of Anna, both Anna Marathon, 14262 State Route 119 East, and Anna Shell, 608 E. Main St., are owned by R&R Takhar Operations. Randy Takhar, son of owner Dave Takhar, said currently only the sale of beer is permitted at their Shell gas station on Sunday. Their Marathon gas station is located on land that was previously part of Franklin Township, which is a dry area. Later, Randy said, the land was annexed to the village of Anna.
The Takhar family is seeking the sell wine, mixed beverages and spirituous liquor between 10 a.m. and midnight on Sundays.
“We are just trying to be competitive with everybody,” Randy said, when asked what prompted the move to get it on the ballot.
He said they began the process to put the local liquor option to Tuesday’s ballot in October. His family hired an outside agency to do the leg-work to obtain the number of signatures required to get the issue on the ballot.
Randy said their full-time employees are hearing positive feedback about being able to sell on Sundays, which makes them feel confident it will pass.
