Topeka ? The Senate narrowly defeated a bill to allow Sunday sales of packaged liquor in communities where voters approve, preventing the measure from going to the governor Friday.

Legislators then adjourned Friday night for a recess that ends April 30, when they reconvene for a wrap-up session in which the liquor bill could be considered again.

The Sunday sales measure is part of a broader bill — dealing with the state’s Liquor Control Act — that took an unusual route to the vote in which the Senate rejected it 19-18.

Typically, legislation is studied in a House or Senate committee and debated in the chamber before being put to a vote.

The Senate had not taken up any Sunday liquor measures in the current session. But it was effectively forced to act after the House put the alcohol regulation language into a Senate-passed bill, approved the legislation and returned it to the Senate for negotiations.

As the two chambers’ negotiators were struggling over the measure Friday evening, Sen. Kay O’Connor, R-Olathe, moved for a Senate vote on whether to accept the bill as approved by the House.

Under the bill, retailers could sell packaged liquor on Sundays if voters in the city or county had approved. Kansas’ overall liquor regulations would be rewritten to make clear that they apply uniformly throughout the state.

The legislation was sparked by a Wyandotte County judge’s decision upholding last year’s public votes in that county to allow Sunday sales.

Kansas’ Constitution allows counties to exempt themselves from statutes that do not apply uniformly across the state. The judge said the Liquor Control Act was such a nonuniform law, so that Wyandotte County was not bound by the act’s ban on Sunday liquor sales.

Many counties and cities along the Missouri state line have long complained about losing Sunday liquor revenue to Missouri stores.

But O’Connor said local control was the real issue, since the House-passed bill would allow each community to make its own decision.

“This isn’t a money issue,” she said. “I believe this is a fairness issue, a free choice issue.”

Opponents said there was no real need for Sunday sales. They suggested proprietors of small liquor stores oppose the idea because they like having Sundays off.

What happens now with the measure is uncertain.

Sen. Nancey Harrington, R-Goddard, her chamber’s lead negotiator on the bill, said she was not sure whether she would agree to keep the talks going or drop the issue until next year.