MOULTRIE, Ga. — Colquitt County officials are looking to put two Sunday alcohol sales questions on the Nov. 8 ballot with an eye toward the taxes it would generate at a new shopping center.

Publix, which will anchor the development, is scheduled to open in September at the intersection of Veterans Parkway South and Highway 37 East. Colquitt County Commission hopes to put the issue to voters on the fall ballot when turnout will be strong as residents will choose their picks for president and sheriff on the same ballot.

One of the two referendums would ask voters to give approval to Sunday sales of beer and wine at merchants’ locations in unincorporated Colquitt County. The second would relate to sales by the drink on Sunday at venues where such sales are allowed.

The commission has granted approval by ordinance for package sales of beer and wine. However, state law requires approval by a majority of voters for Sunday sales.

“The board does not have the authority to vote for Sunday sales of beer and wine,” County Attorney Lester Castellow told the commission members during a meeting on Tuesday. “It would have to approve (them) conditional on public support in a referendum.”

Commissioners will have to approve the separate questions with time for Probate Court Judge Wes Lewis, whose office oversees elections in the county, to place them on the local ballot, Castellow said. That timeline means the commission would have to act by late July or its first meeting in August.

Castellow said if the grocer could not get authority for Sunday sales, it could seek annexation into the City of Moultrie, where Sunday sales already have been approved.

“I think we selfishly want to keep those excise taxes inside the county,” County Administrator Chas Cannon said. “I will prepare an ordinance that mirrors Moultrie’s.”

At the moment, the only Sunday sales allowed in the county are in the cities of Doerun and Moultrie.

Doerun voters approved — by a three-vote margin — giving Doerun City Council the authority to issue permits and regulate package sales on Sundays. It set hours for sale on that day as 12:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m.

Moultrie voters approved Sunday sales in 2013.

A change in state law allowed elected officials to put the question of Sunday alcohol sales to voters beginning in fall of 2011.

Retailers are not allowed to sell liquor in the county, with the exception of Moultrie which allows for the licensing of a limited number of merchants.

County commissioners issued its first beer- and wine-sales license in 2012, and in November 2013 amended its ordinance so as to allow for sales at farm wineries.

The Publix location is expected to create as many as 250 jobs, including those at the grocery store and other businesses expected to move into the shopping center.