Petition against waiting period for club membership law

The Wilmington city council voted unanimously last night to send a recommendation letter to the state's ABC commission asking them to take an old law off the books. Apparently, these efforts will not be enough. The law the council wants to change is the 3 day private club membership wait period law. Some Marines said bar owners use this law to discriminate against them, and deny them access into the club. Former Marine and current city council member, Jason Thompson, felt strongly about getting rid of the 3 day wait period for a club membership. “It negatively affects tourism. “It allows a mechanism to kind of discriminate on a very wishywashy basis," said Thompson. He and the rest of the Wilmington city council voted to send a recommendation letter to the state ABC commission, which has the authority to overturn or change the law. "A lot of other cities have already sent letters asking for the law to be repealed with their reasons why." Thompson said. Thompson also said, “Wilmington has a better stand than other cities because Wilmington has a bonafide case where the 3 day rule was being used to selectively discriminate against protected federal classes." According to the chief counsel of the ABC commission, this may not be enough to change the long standing law. "They sent letters asking the commission to overturn the 3 day waiting period law. No one has sent a petition asking the commission to change the rule." said Fred Gregory of the ABC commission. When council member Thompson heard about the necessary petition, he called the commission's chief counsel for confirmation. "The state's ABC commission was playing a little shell game because for years they've been receiving letters asking for this to be repealed, and until now we find out that we can’t do it without a petition request. Obviously the other people who've been filing letters they found out there's a petition procedure so now that we've found that out we'll put the pressure on the ABC commission for them to make a change." Thompson said. The next city council meeting will properly fill out the petition and send it to the ABC commission.