Williamsburg City Council moves to lift restrictions on Sunday alcohol sales

You will soon be able to buy alcohol in Williamsburg on a Sunday morning if you so desire.

During its regular monthly meeting Monday, the Williamsburg City Council held the first reading of amended alcohol beverage control ordinance.

The only change is deleting a provision of the ordinance that only allowed Sunday alcohol sales from 1 p.m. – midnight.

Williamsburg Mayor Roddy Harrison said that he could see some restaurants wanting to be able to serve mimosas with Sunday brunch.

Harrison added that he can’t envision many restaurants wanting to open at 8 a.m. to sell alcohol on Sundays, but he can envision someone, who wants to go to the lake or go camping, picking up a case of beer at a package store at that hour.

During Monday’s meeting, the council also discussed the city’s water loss rate, which has dipped to 18 percent.

Harrison said he can’t remember the last time the city had a water loss rate that low.

It has gotten as high as 50 percent before.

“It didn’t stay 50 percent for long, but it has been in the 30s and 40s for a long time,” Harrison said. “I have been here as mayor for 17 years or so, and it has been a fight.”

The discovery of a major waterline leak on South Second Street in late January repaired a water leak that was gushing 100 – 150 gallons of water per minute into the Cumberland River. This was attributed to a decrease in much of the water loss rate.

Harrison attributed the discovery of that leak and the repair of other leaks to the efforts of workers at the water treatment plant and city maintenance, who have been “busting it,” and trying to get the water loss rate down even lower.

Another factor that Harrison attributed to the water loss decrease was new water meters purchased about five years ago, which can be read via a 3G wireless signal.

However, T-Mobile, which recently acquired Sprint, is now requiring the city to upgrade its 1,463 3G meters to 5G meters. The city already has about 200 5G meters, which have been purchased over the last few years.

Each new meter will cost about $150 each.

Harrison said that T-Mobile has agreed to pay for half of the costs of the upgrades, which essentially involves changing out the end-points on the existing meters.

Even with T-Mobile picking up half of the expense, the city’s portion of the new meter cost will still run about $111,000.

In addition, the city will have to pay installation costs.

Harrison said that most of the installers the city spoke with wanted $40-$50 per meter, but he has found one installer, who is only going to charge the city $10 per meter.

Harrison said that the project will probably total about $140,000. This is assuming some kind of hiccup is encountered while completing it, which isn’t uncommon.

Harrison hopes to use American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to pay for the project since it clearly involves infrastructure.

Harrison warned that he hasn’t consulted with an attorney yet to see if ARPA funds can be used specifically for this purpose.

The new meters will have a 10-year 100 percent warranty, which decreases by 10 percent each year starting at year 11 when the warranty will cover 90 percent of the costs.

The new meters will also come with a free app that people can download to monitor their water usage.

Councilman Richard Foley asked how the meters were going to run off 5G in Williamsburg, when cellphone customers in Williamsburg don’t even have a 5G signal.

Harrison admits that he doesn’t know the answer to that question, but promised he would ask.