Liquor sales in unincorporated Polk County are the strictest compared with its cities and most neighboring counties, but that could change in the coming months.
During the County Commission’s agenda review on Aug. 29, Ben Ziskal, director of Polk County’s Land Development Division, provided the board with an overview of possible changes to the county’s land use codes pertaining to liquor sales.
What makes Polk’s liquor laws so strict?
Businesses often have to request variances to operate a bar or liquor store in unincorporated Polk County because they might be too close to a school or church. Publix is among the businesses that have needed such variances in recent years, such as a store in’s building just off Havendale Boulevard between Winter Haven and Auburndale.
Or a business in the unincorporated county might request to annex into a nearby county with more business-friendly liquor laws. Such was the case with the ABC Fine Wine & Spirits on Cypress Gardens Boulevard in Winter Haven. It was annexed into the city in April 2024 so it could sell liquor on Sundays, just like businesses across the street that were already in the Winter Haven city limits.
On the chopping block is language about the distance a business selling alcohol must be from churches and schools, as well as alterations to the days and hours businesses are allowed to sell or serve alcohol in unincorporated areas.
“Currently, we are the most restrictive of any city within the county. We’re more restrictive than all the cities,” Ziskal said. “And we’re more restrictive or equal to all the surrounding counties.”
Staff has discussed “challenges that we see with the land development code as it relates to some enforcement issues that code enforcement is seeing in the field, maybe some challenges that the building division is seeing with permitting and interpretation of the code or requests that we get from the public and challenges that they see with the code as it’s written today, maybe, versus market realities or the business community,” Ziskal said, providing a framework for the discussion with the commissioners.
There are “inconsistencies” with Polk’s land code regarding the serving and sales of liquor in establishments compared to cities and neighboring counties, he said.
Right now, for example, Polk measures the separation of liquor establishments from schools and churches via a straight line or “as the crow flies” from property line to property line.
Distances of separation vary among the four designations for establishments selling alcohol. The categories include establishments were patrons drink liquor on premises; buy packaged liquor at a store; supermarkets that sell only beer and wine; and bars or restaurants that serve only beer and wine.
For a beer and wine license, Polk has a 1,000-foot separation requirement, Ziskal said. Some cities have no restriction in this category of establishment, where patrons consume the beverages on site.
Some distance separations can be as far as 2,500 feet, he said.
In a staff analysis, they found that the property-line-to-property-line approach to separate school-aged kids and churchgoers may not be working as intended. One reason is property sizes vary ― for example, in a shopping center where a liquor establishment is well beyond the center’s property line and its border with a church or school.
Other counties, for example, have changed their distance measurement to the best pedestrian path via sidewalks and crosswalks to keep the sacrosanct institutions and bars a safe distance apart.
Pedestrian routes are often much longer than the required distance of separation, Ziskal said. So staff recommends changing the measurement to the walking distance between the two properties’ doors.
That staff recommendation would be 500 feet to 750 feet depending on the category, he said.
Once the commissioners were told 11 liquor-sales variances have been granted by the county and none rejected in recent years, a consensus of the elected officials leaned toward reforming the current liquor laws.
“It really looks like from a procedural standpoint we’re OK with reducing it because we have granted 100% of them and denied none of them,” Ziskal said.
Commissioner Martha Santiago called the decision to reduce distances as a “no-brainer.”
Commissioner Becky Troutman urged the board to move in the direction of matching neighboring cities because the county is losing businesses to cities under the current laws.
Ziskal also wanted feedback on Sunday liquor sales, which are not permitted in the county, nor Mulberry and Auburndale. All surrounding counties allow full liquor sales on Sunday.
The county does allow consumption on premises on Sundays from noon to midnight. Ziskal said county staff recommends allowing liquor stores to open for the same hours on Sundays.
Some cities allow liquor sales as early as 7 a.m. on Sundays, he noted.
Process to ease liquor sales restrictions
The session was more about what’s broken with the county’s liquor laws. So specific changes to the Comprehensive Plan were not yet available during the agenda review. With the direction staff received from the commissioners, public hearings on proposed ordinances will be next.
“Staff will be drafting the proposed amendments based on feedback received at the Work Session and will determine a schedule/timeline once the drafts are completed,” Ziskal said via a Sept. 8 email.
Eventually, the first stop would be the Planning Commission. But as of yet, a date for such a hearing has not been set. Then two County Commission meetings would be held to hear from the public.
Polk County had started a revision to its Comprehensive Land Use Plan, which regulates what building uses can and cannot be allowed on parcels throughout the county.
But Senate Bill 180 stopped any changes that would be more restrictive for developers, so changes such as the liquor sales portion of the Comp Plan are among several revisions that would not violate the Florida law because they are less restrictive.
While alcohol sales will be the heaviest lift, there were four other potential changes to the Comp Plan the commissioners discussed with county staff. Others included:
- Cargo containers in residential neighborhoods.
- Mobile homes in southeast Polk County.
- Power lines and landscaping.
- Swimming pool safety.