The city of Tonganoxie will soon be looking at approving Sunday liquor sales.

Basehor’s recent approval of Sunday liquor sales Aug. 6 prompted owners of liquor stores in Tonganoxie to speak to the Tonganoxie City Council at its regular meeting Monday about opening sales to the public.

The owners of Krouse Liquor and Mary’s Retail Liquor came to ask what they needed to do to put this topic on next week’s agenda.

“With Basehor passing their resolution and if it’s not opposed by the public, we will be the only community totally surrounded by cities that have Sunday liquor sales,” said Mary Krouse, owner of Mary’s Retail Liquor. “We lost a lot of money last year because we couldn’t be open on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve.”

On top of the city losing tax dollars on those days, Krouse pointed out that many people who traveled out of the city to purchase liquor more than likely bought the rest of the goods they needed for those holidays somewhere else.

Council President Jason Ward agreed that the council should look into the liquor sales.

“I’m not going to pull punches to what kind of business it is, I want to promote business; it is in the best interest of the city to promote business,” Ward said. “It’s a polarizing issue but there are many cities around Kansas that have passed Sunday liquor sales. Now that Basehor has passed their liquor sales I don’t want to put any of our business at a disadvantage.”

Council member Steve Gumm agreed.

“If the majority of citizens in Tonganoxie don’t want it they will go through the process to disallow it,” he said.

The council agreed to put the matter on the agenda for the next council meeting, scheduled for Aug. 27.