Champaign City Council Disbands Liquor Advisory Commission

After 17 years, the Champaign Liquor Advisory Commission is no more. The Champaign City Council voted 8-0 Tuesday night to dissolve the panel set up to advise council members on changes to the Champaign liquor code.

Issued discussed by the Liquor Advisory Commission in recent years include Unofficial St. Patrick's Day, package liquor deliveries, and regulations for nuisance parties. But the commission -- which was made up of six Champaign liquor license holders, two University of Illinois representatives and a city council member --- canceled many of its monthly meetings, and held actual meetings just four times in the past year. The Liquor Advisory Commission had never exercised its powers to hold hearings or inspect bars and liquor stores. Champaign Mayor and Liquor Commissioner Jerry Schweighart says the panel no longer serves a useful purpose.

"They only meet once a month for what, an hour, hour and a half", says Schweighart. "Some of these issues drug on for a long time with the LAC studying them. On some of these things, I need a quicker response. So I think I can get that quicker response by using direct communication with all the license holders."

Schweighart says the Liquor Advisory Commission canceled many meetings, because there were few issues for them to discuss. "And they were getting frustrated with that", adds the mayor. "I know that some of the commissioners were disgusted with the fact that they'd spend so much time on an issue, and then the council would just totally out-of-hand reject it. So, there was frustrations on both parts."

No Liquor Advisory Commissioners or other liquor license holder spoke up about the vote to disband the panel during the council meeting.

Schweighart says he'll keep in touch with liquor license holders by mail and email, and reach out to members of the now defunct commission informally when he needs their input. In the meantime, the mayor says he's looking at phasing out some other city commissions he thinks are no longer needed.