 Minnesota's liquor laws are changing in a big way. Beginning on July 1st, liquor stores will now have the option of being open on Sundays. Tonight we take an in-depth look at how the changing landscape could impact the city of Bemidji and its municipal liquor stores. Bemidji's city officials are taking a close look at how Sunday sales could affect their liquor store profits. Based on data collected from other states who made the switch, the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, a proponent of Sunday sales, expects most liquor stores in Minnesota to benefit from opening on Sunday. We've looked at a number of states throughout the years. We've largely been working on this since about 2000, 2001. And what we've found is that typically there's around a five, six, seven percent increase in sales when a state starts allowing sales on Sundays. But Bemidji's city officials who depend on liquor profits to help reduce city property taxes are concerned about the change. By and large, it doesn't pay to be open on Sundays an extra day, which is one of the fundamental reasons why the small business community and the municipal liquor stores in Minnesota, if not wanted to be open on Sundays, it doesn't pay to be open. Matthew says he's skeptical of the studies cited by the Distilled Spirits Council, but says the city does not have any projections for what to expect with Sunday sales. There are definitely different views on whether this will help or hurt liquor stores' bottom lines. It's truly a matter of if you see the glass is half full or half empty. I don't know that it's gonna have a positive impact financially on liquor store operations. Our feeling is that the change will spread six days worth of sales over seven and not necessarily be a profit maker for Sunday. The evidence we have against that is when you look at the control states, i.e. those states that have some sort of state-sponsored monopoly. When you look at states like Pennsylvania, Virginia, Oregon, in most of those control states, what happened is we went in, talked about Sunday sales, and they agreed to try Sunday sales as an experiment because they too were concerned that, in fact, they might be cannibalizing sales from other days of the week. But, inevitably, in every one of those states after a period of initial experimentation, they then came back to us and said, hey, this has been an amazing success. Would you please help us get legislation passed now that will allow us to expand the number of stores that are open on Sundays? Bemidji officials say additional labor costs will be their biggest expense for opening on Sundays. And that's part of the reason that Sunday sales has always been such a wonderful value proposition for the retailers is that you're already renting this space. It's not as if a landlord is going to give you a break on your rent just because you're not open on Sundays. You're running the coolers. The stock is already there. It's sitting on the shelves. So why not be open on Sundays? What's the marginal cost of one or two additional people? It's just not that high. And if you can't figure out a way to cover the expenses for the marginal expense of one additional employee one day a week, well, there might be something wrong. Legislators in favor of the change say Sundays have turned into one of the busiest shopping days of the week. And Bemidji, as a regional hub, sees its share of out-of-town shoppers on Sundays. Still, city officials aren't sure the numbers will add up favorably and are taking a cautious approach. At best we can hope to break even, but it's something that we will have to discuss with the council to determine if they want to make that policy decision to stay open or not and try it to see what the impact is for the summer. Maybe it'll be a seasonality thing where in the summertime it may be worthwhile in the wintertime with lower tourists and customers, perhaps not. Now, under the new law, liquor stores will have the option of being open from 11 a.m. until 6 p.m. on Sundays. We asked Bemidji city officials for details on the exact expenses for opening and how many sales dollars would be needed to turn a profit, but we were told those numbers were still being examined and they would be given first to the city council before being released to the media. It's not clear when the Bemidji city council will discuss the issue. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland news, please consider making a tax deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.