Alcohol deliveries wins committee OK
The Senate City, County and Local Affairs Committee on Tuesday endorsed legislation that would allow an employee of a retail liquor business to deliver alcoholic beverages to residences.
Under the proposal, the consumer must be at least 21 years old and in a wet county. The delivery must be during legal operating hours.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson's public health emergency declaration during the covid-19 pandemic allowed liquor stores to make residential deliveries, said Sen. Jane English, R-North Little Rock, the sponsor of Senate Bill 32.
"What we are hoping to do is to pass the bill, so that once the pandemic is past, this will still be a good business model for liquor stores," she said.
The retail liquor permit holder would be barred from delivering alcoholic beverages outside the county in which the permitted store is located under SB32.
The bill would bar the alcoholic beverages from being delivered by a third-party.
There are 764 liquor stores with retail liquor permits in the state and 44 wet counties in Arkansas, Scott Hardin, a spokesman for the state Department of Finance and Administration, said afterward.
Liquor store delivery was made possible by an Alcoholic Beverage Control emergency rule change, which was possible due to the governor's declaration of the covid-19 public health emergency, he said.
-- Michael R. Wickline
Lawmaker reports positive covid test
Rep. Keith Slape, R-Compton, on Tuesday became the latest state lawmaker to publicly acknowledge that he tested positive for covid-19.
He is the second state lawmaker to disclose they have tested positive for coronavirus since the regular session started Jan. 11.
Slape informed House Speaker Matthew Shepherd, R-El Dorado, about the test result Tuesday morning, said House spokeswoman Cecillea Pond-Mayo.
Slape, 55, said he learned Monday that he tested positive Saturday. He is quarantining at home.
He said he's not sure how he caught coronavirus because he has been taking all the precautions, including wearing a mask and socially distancing from others. He said he was in Little Rock for the regular session from Jan. 11-14.
"I have mild symptoms," Slape said. "No taste and no smell, so it's a good time to eat beans."
Senate President Pro Tempore Jim Hickey, R-Texarkana, said Tuesday that he is unaware of any senators testing positive.
Slape is the 20th lawmaker to have publicly acknowledged testing positive in the past four months. A total of 24 lawmakers have said they tested positive since the pandemic officially arrived in the state in March.
The Legislature has 135 members.
-- Michael R. Wickline
Jury pay donation bill passes House
The House on Tuesday passed a bill that would allow jurors to donate their per diem and mileage reimbursement.
Rep. Carol Dalby, R-Texarkana, the sponsor, said the Administrative Office of the Courts would compile a list of charities eligible for the program. Those would include organizations providing counseling, resources for veterans and neglected children, domestic violence shelters and legal education.
Jurors are typically paid about $50 in compensation and mileage expenses, plus $15 per appearance, according to Dalby, though each county sets the full amount of the reimbursements.
"If they want to donate, they can, if not, they don't have to," Dalby said.
The vote to advance the bill to the Senate was 88-0.
-- Rachel Herzog
Rule aids funding of skills centers
The Legislative Council's Executive Subcommittee on Tuesday approved the state Department of Commerce's Office of Skills Development's emergency rule to provide the office the flexibility to distribute additional state funds to secondary career and technical education centers that have been negatively impacted by covid-19.
Cody Waits, director of the Office of Skills Development, said there are 30 career and technical education centers across the state and enrollment in the fall semester declined by slightly more than 2,000 students, which is nearly 400 full-time equivalent students.
The funding distributed to the centers last fall declined by $2.3 million compared to the fall of 2019, he said.
Ten centers have requested slightly more than $700,000 in additional funding, Waits said. He said he expects these funds will be distributed by the end of this week.
-- Michael R. Wickline
Rx audit powers bill advances
The House Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee advanced legislation by state Rep. Justin Boyd, R-Fort Smith, on Tuesday that would give the Arkansas Department of Health the authority to request copies of written and electronic prescriptions in order to audit information that is submitted to the state's Prescription Drug Monitoring Program.
The Health Department has existing authority to monitor the program for information "that appears to indicate whether a prescriber or dispenser may be prescribing or dispensing prescriptions in a manner that may represent misuse or abuse of controlled substances," but not to request copies of the original prescriptions.
"If information is in [the monitoring program] there's not a way to audit it to make sure it's correct," Boyd said.
The committee passed Boyd's proposal, House Bill 1107, by a voice vote, sending it to the House floor.
-- John Moritz