Woman's plan B for liquor license succeeds

Debby Erlbacher had to buy a bar to get a liquor license.

All she wanted was to be able to cater at her own Pacific Street business.

For more than three years, Erlbacher has been offering full-service weddings through Francine's Gardens, 28 N. Pacific St.

She'd been paying an outside caterer for food and the right to serve alcohol with meals -- thousands of dollars, she said. Last year, she failed to convince the Cape Girardeau City Council to alter an ordinance requiring 200 feet between an establishment serving alcohol and a church or school. The state only requires a 100 feet buffer.

So she bought a bar, at 10 S. Plaza Way, near Independence and Clark streets. Shamrocks Irish Pub is scheduled to open March 1.

"There are five bars within a two block radius," she told the city council Monday night. Council members unanimously approved her license.

The plan, she said after the meeting, is for her son to run the bar and for Erlbacher to use the license for catering weddings. After a year, she plans to transfer the bar into her son's name -- a gift, she said.

"I'm not going into the bar business," she said.

Presentations

The city council also listened and watched a parks and storm-water tax initiative presentation by Danny Essner, chairman of the parks and recreation advisory board.

The meeting's highlight came early on, in a ceremony awarding plaques to three police officers: Detective Jimmy Smith of the Cape Girardeau Police Department, Carbondale, Ill., police chief Bob Ledbetter, and a Carbondale detective, Lt. Paul Echols. Mayor Jay Knudtson hailed their "outstanding police cooperation" in solving five of Cape Girardeau's six unsolved murders. Smith told the room, which included his son, Michael, 9, that he was motivated by the need to help the victims, Mary and Brenda Parsh, Sheila Cole, Mildred Wallace, and Margie Call, and their families.

A recording of the entire city council meeting will be broadcast on cable channel 5 at 6:30 p.m. today, 7:30 a.m. Thursday and midnight Friday.

pmcnichol@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 127