|
Local restaurant, hospitality group backs Sunday sales |
|
Thursday, 13 August 2009 |
Please accept this letter on behalf of the Golden Triangle Chapter of the Mississippi Hospitality and Restaurant Association as an endorsement of extending the hours of alcohol service to include Sunday.
Extending sales to Sundays is not new to Mississippi. Dozens of cities and counties have already established extended hours.
While we fully appreciate and understand the sensitivity of this issue, allowing alcohol sales on Sunday’s is a sound business decision. By allowing Sunday sales, restaurants can better serve our clientele.
Many patrons enjoy watching a full slate of afternoon sports including Sunday football, NASCAR races and other sporting events.
We all know the financial impact of “game days” in Starkville. While maybe not of the same magnitude, Sunday sales will increase business in local restaurants. In turn this will lead to more employee hours and tax revenue for the city.Additionally, many meetings and conferences occur on weekends.
By allowing Sunday sales, our hotel properties and meeting/convention facilities will be able to offer meeting participants opportunities to hold receptions and formal dinners on Sunday. Sunday sales makes sense. Please support extending alcohol sales to Sundays.
Jay Yates, chef/owner
The Veranda Restaurant
President, Golden Triangle chapter MHRA
Legal advertisement on Sunday alcohol sales hearing misleading
I opened the newspaper Monday (Aug. 10) and noticed an advertisement for the second public hearing on the matter of Sunday alcoholic beverage sales.
This advertisement, either intentionally or by mistake, implies that Sunday sales is the only matterbeing considered by the Board of Aldermen on Aug. 18. However, there are three (3) additional proposed ordinance changes being considered.
First, there is a proposal to extend the hours that alcohol would be sold, Sunday through Saturday. Every day of the week would have some extension of hours.
Second, a reduction in the distance for places that sell alcohol from churches and schools is being considered.
Third, under consideration is allowing open containers at times and locations decided on a case-by-case basis by the Board of Aldermen, contrary to the existing prohibition against open containers anywhere in the city. This misleading advertisement goes against the transparency of government, about which we heard so much discussion during the recent municipal campaign.
I write this letter to ensure that all citizens know about the four (4) proposed changes to our local ordinances. No matter how you stand on this issue, I encourage you to voice your opinion.
Ben Carver
Alderman, Ward 1
Government, insurance industry do not have patients’ interests at heart
In the debate concerning government versus private health insurance, my experience says that both can disallow coverage with no recourse by either the doctor or the patient.
In the summer of 2007, I had to have surgery. My doctor told me that while he was doing the “major” surgery, he would do a minor surgical procedure so that the condition necessitating the surgery would not reoccur.
When Medicare reviewed his invoice, they denied payment for the minor surgery.
An appeal by the surgeon was also denied with the same Medicare statement, “The procedure is not covered by Medicare.” Obviously no exceptions for a “medical necessity.”
I have been taking a prescription medicine ever since it came on the market with excellent results.
When I went through the nearly five months of mail that had accumulated while we were away last December through May, I found a notice from our Medicare Part-D insurance provider stating, “Your condition does not warrant the use of this drug. Ask your doctor for a prescription for another drug in our formulary.”
Thus all of my remaining “refills” were cancelled without consulting me or my doctor.
When I first started taking that medicine, it had a lower co-pay than the medicine it replaced and now the insurance provider is offering essentially that original medicine as “my option.”
I suggest that neither the government nor the private insurance industry has the “patient-doctor relationship” as a guiding principle. Clearly either entity operates as a “bean counter.” Both clearly place themselves “above” the doctors’ medical decisions.
John Tilley
Starkville
|
|
Last Updated ( Friday, 14 August 2009 )
|
