Cafe owners seek voter approval to serve alcohol in Oak Ridge

Oak Ridge voters will decide next month whether to allow a local cafe to serve liquor by the drink.

Four years ago, voters rejected a similar proposal for the West End Market convenience store and restaurant by three votes. The vote was 25 for the measure to 28 against.

That business closed in March 2017, reopening as the Flying Bluejay Cafe. (Blue Jays is the nickname for the local high school sports teams.)

The cafe hosted a public meeting Wednesday evening where the measure, which will be on the Nov. 5 ballot, was explained. About a dozen people — including several town board members — attended the gathering to learn more about the ballot issue and voice their concerns.

Charlie Glueck, one of 19 investors in the Flying Bluejay Cafe, said the ownership group wants to sell alcohol during dinner hours only, in an effort to make the business more profitable.

Oak Ridge village board chairman Charley Schoen, right, talks to residents at a meeting Wednesday at the Flying Bluejay Cafe, as fellow board member Mac Armbruster looks on.Mark Bliss

The cafe serves breakfast, lunch and evening meals. Glueck said Wednesday they want to increase their evening business.

Its rural customers, many of them farmers, ask for beers with their meals, he said.

“When we serve fish on a Friday night, they want a bottle of beer,” Glueck said before the meeting.

But the small Cape Girardeau County town of Oak Ridge, with a population of less than 300, has an ordinance prohibiting such liquor sales. The town does allow sale of package liquor, which is sold at the cafe.

But Glueck said aside from package liquor and a few other items, the business is more of a restaurant than a convenience store.

“It’s very difficult in that town to makes ends meet,” said Glueck, who lives in the Oak Ridge area and operates a tire company in Jackson.

If the measure passes, Glueck said before the meeting, he and the other investors would be agreeable to the village board enacting a law allowing sale of alcohol by the drink only during evening hours, from 5 p.m. to closing, which currently is 8 p.m.

In the future, closing might be extended to 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday nights, he added.

“But our intentions are not to put a tavern in Oak Ridge,” he said.

The ballot measure, however, does not specify hours for liquor sales.

Glueck said he and others involved in the business venture circulated a petition, gathering signatures to place the issue on the ballot.

The petition effort collected 42 valid signatures, more than enough to put the issue before voters, Glueck said.

He added the petition effort was well received.

“The overall feeling of the whole thing was very positive,” he said.

This marks the first opportunity for such a vote since 2015, Glueck said.

Under state law, there is a four-year period before such a measure can be resubmitted to voters, he said.

Charley Schoen, chairman of the village board, said board members did not take a stand on the measure, but simply agreed to put it on the ballot as legally required.

“It is not on our top list of priorities,” said Schoen, adding the board is more interested in building sidewalks and establishing a park.

Schoen said some Oak Ridge residents are opposed to allowing any liquor by the drink sales. Schoen said he sees both sides. “I am kind of stuck in the middle,” he said before the meeting.

But his wife, Jessica, told Glueck she is concerned passage of the measure could open the door for future liquor establishments.

“For me, once it is in, it is in,” she said of the opportunity for others to sell liquor by the drink.

Families walk everywhere in town,” she said, adding she doesn’t want nearby public school students to have to walk by any liquor establishment.

“I just don’t think alcohol is ever going to benefit our community,” Jessica Schoen said.

Bruce Schoen, Charley’s uncle, also voiced concern. He said the town suffered numerous incidents of vandalism and other crimes in the late 1990s from patrons of a bar located just outside the city limits.

“We had to start a neighborhood watch program,” he recalled.

The bar has since closed, but he said he doesn’t want to see a repeat of such lawlessness.

Charley Schoen said if voters approve the measure, the board will have to enact an ordinance to regulate sales of liquor by the drink. The board would look to limit the number of licenses and the hours of operation, he said.

“This is a whole new ballgame if it passes,” he said.

Do you like stories about government and courts? Keep up with the latest news by signing up for our daily morning headline email. Go to semissourian.com/newsletters to find out more.