Riverton City Council increases Sunday liquor sale hours

RIVERTON — After seesawing on the hours, the Riverton City Council on Tuesday voted to expand Sunday liquor sale hours to 6 a.m. until midnight by a vote of 5-2.

The move came after some liquor license holders complained the former limited Sunday sales hours of noon to 10 p.m. were hurting business. Brunches minus mimosas and the inability to open for early NFL games, they said, equated to lost revenue and put them at a disadvantage.

But not everyone agreed.

Citing concerns about alcohol abuse in the city, council members Kyle Larson and Karen Johnson voted against the expanded hours.

“I’m not going to beat a dead horse,” Johnson acknowledged of the majority in favor of the proposal.

But, she said, the state allows municipalities to set their own liquor sale hours for a reason: Situations differ in different cities. She said the police, ambulance and hospital are all being inundated by people abusing alcohol, and if the key issue for city leaders was the “almighty dollar,” the city ought to examine placing an extra tax on alcohol to address those issues.

The council had flip-flopped on what hours an expanded Sunday liquor sales ordinance would include.

At its first reading, the council voted for 6 a.m. to 2 a.m. Sunday sales.

But by the following meeting, some council members were having second thoughts, and amended it to 10 a.m. to midnight.

On Tuesday, it was amended again; this time, council member Rebecca Pierson-Lewis made a motion to change the hours to 6 a.m. to midnight. She pointed to a letter written by Brown Sugar Coffee Roastery Amanda Henry as good reasoning to expand Sunday sale hours, noting that an examination of police calls in Riverton didn’t show a correlation between alcohol sale hours and police calls.

“My customers have made it clear: they want to enjoy a mimosa with their pancakes or an Irish coffee with their eggs Benedict,” Henry wrote, explaining that brunch is a growing trend nationwide and her business is limited to meet that demand.

An informal survey of her Sunday patrons showed that over 80% would order an alcoholic beverage in the morning if they could.

“Brunch drinkers sipping a mimosa at 8 a.m. aren’t the same demographic causing late-night disturbances … The noon start hour is an outdated restriction that doesn’t address real concerns.”

“We all know we have an alcoholism problem in the community, but I don’t think those are the people showing up for mimosas at a local restaurant,” council member Mike Bailey agreed. “And I think those people, no matter what the hours are, they’re going to abuse alcohol.”

It’s currently illegal to serve a person who is already intoxicated, Bailey noted, and the city is also now requiring bartenders and wait staff who serve to undergo an alcohol training program to help them strictly follow that and other laws.

“I’m for people having the freedom to exercise their own responsibility,” he said, adding what time of day they use that freedom isn’t for the city to restrict.

The city does not have the ability to enact an alcohol sales tax, but Riverton resident Chesie Lee urged the issue be taken to Cheyenne.

“We definitely have an underfunded mental health services [problem],” she said.

A two-cent per gallon tax on beer is far too little to address the problems alcohol causes, she added.

“I think citizens should get united around to implement [more alcohol tax revenue] to address the problems that alcoholism causes and to address the health crisis, and to provide treatment.”

“As an Indigenous Northern Arapaho from the Wind River Reservation, I’ve been observing everybody’s words of ‘those people,’ and I don’t know who ‘those people’ are,” said Nicole Wagon before the vote of council members’ comments about the problem with alcoholism in Riverton. “I think we need to acknowledge that alcoholism is a disease; it doesn’t care who you are … We have a problem here, and it’s not getting better.”

Council member Karla Borders said she had gone back and forth with her support of Sunday extended sale hours and her decision wasn’t an easy one.

“I am going to go on the side of personal choice,” she said. “For me it’s a choice about freedom and personal responsibility, and that’s why I’m going to vote in favor of this.”

This story was published on March 8, 2025.