PEORIA, Ill. – AMC Grand Prairie and Willow Knolls movie theaters could sell alcohol next year.
During the Peoria Liquor Commission meeting Monday night, representatives from both theater companies spoke to the commission about allowing the sales of alcohol.
Heath Thomas, the Regional Manager for Goodrich Quality Theaters said this idea is new to Peoria, and there are precautions to make sure minors are not being served alcohol.
Thomas said out of the company’s 30 theaters, half sell alcohol.
“We really follow the best practices for the industry,” Thomas said. “ID every single person, armbands, specific types of cups different than what we would serve a soda pop in, massive amounts of training both from the state and internal.”
Other precautions include in theater checks to make sure no one is passing alcohol to a minor and that no one is getting over served.
Thomas said that the facility will not be a bar.
“We don’t do cheap beer, we don’t do shots. We always have a mixer if we were to do a liquor type drink,” Thomas said.
With the rise in popularity of staying home and watching movies on a streaming service, Thomas said this is something else to do out of the house.
“We’re not looking to serve alcohol at 9:00 in the morning,” Thomas said. “We’re looking to have service start around noon, and it would end around 10:30 or 11:00 at night.”
Peoria Liquor Commission Chairman, Mike Miller, said the discussion was to bring out the facts.
“The legal department wants to incorporate some of the best practices that the theaters shared with us that they want to do, and write that into the ordinance to hold them to that,” Miller said.
The decision will not be made until 2020, the commission will resume the discussion in January before it can be taken to the Peoria City Council.
