Topeka ? The legal fight over whether liquor stores can be open on Sundays in Wyandotte County has started with state and local officials going to court to push their positions.

“We are going to pursue the will of the people of Wyandotte County,” Dennis Hays, administrator for the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kan., said Friday.

At issue is a countywide ordinance approved by 60 percent of the voters on Nov. 5 to permit Sunday sales in liquor stores in the county. The Edwardsville City Council in August unanimously approved an ordinance allowing its one liquor store to open on Sunday.

The opening round of the legal fight occurred Thursday when Wyandotte officials asked District Judge George Groneman to declare the voter-approved ordinance legal.

Henry Couchman, Unified Government assistant council, said the judge issued an order suspending enforcement of the Sunday liquor sales law in Kansas City, Kan., until the issue is resolved.

He said no hearing had been scheduled.

Couchman said he believed the judge’s order meant that liquor stores could open on Sundays.

“The intent was to allow them to open in accordance to the ordinance,” Couchman said.

State liquor laws are enforced by the Department of Revenue’s Alcoholic Beverage Control division.

“As far as things stand now, we don’t plan on violating that order,” Revenue spokeswoman Lisa Kaspar said. “We are not giving legal advice to liquor stores one way or the other.”

Also Thursday, Atty. Gen. Carla Stovall filed a petition in Wyandotte County asking that both the countywide and Edwardsville ordinances be declared illegal. Couchman said he expected both petitions to be consolidated and handled by one judge.

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.

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.

“The home rule powers allow cities to exempt themselves from nonuniform laws and this is a nonuniform law,” Couchman said.

For her part, Stovall maintains the Sunday liquor laws apply equally to all jurisdictions and therefore the Unified Government’s ordinance is invalid.