Topeka ? A recently passed resolution exempting Wyandotte County from the state’s ban on Sunday liquor sales will be challenged in court.

Atty. Gen. Carla Stovall announced Friday she would ask a court to clarify the law and make a determination on the issue. Stovall gave no timetable for filing her challenge.

Sunday liquor sales are permitted in Missouri. But Kansas legislators have repeatedly rejected measures to repeal the state’s ban on sales of packaged beer, wine and liquor on Sundays.

Commissioners of the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kan., decided in August to ask voters whether Sunday sales should be allowed at liquor stores. By a 60 percent to 40 percent margin, voters approved the measure on Nov. 5.

In Edwardsville, also located in Wyandotte County, the city council in August unanimously approved a charter ordinance allowing its one liquor store to open on Sunday.

The Unified Government’s argument stems from a provision of the Kansas Constitution allowing cities to exempt themselves from certain statutes, such as those that do not apply uniformly to all cities.

Following the vote, the Unified Government said the measure could go into effect immediately, but they counseled prudence and recommended that liquor stores not open.

Most stores remained closed on Nov. 10, the first Sunday after the election. But the decision to open that day paid off for Merrill Wright, of Wright’s Liquor store in Kansas City, Kan. When he arrived to open his store early Sunday afternoon, he said, about 30 customers were waiting in his parking lot.

Wright said Stovall’s announcement Friday came as no surprise.

“I knew she would (challenge it) all along,” Wright said. “She was going to have to do it. We are, in effect, defying state law. There was going to have to be a court case on it.”

Wright said he probably wouldn’t open this Sunday.

Stovall said any case filed would be against the Unified Government and Edwardsville, not individual retailers. But Wright said he was unable to reach officials with the state’s Division of Alcohol Beverage Control and did not know what action they would take against liquor stores that open on Sundays.