(Columbia) July 3, 2003 - South Carolina liquor stores will be open Friday, July 4th. Governor Mark Sanford says he won't make liquor stores in South Carolina close on the Fourth of July.

Governors have made Independence Day a dry day for liquor store for decades. State law allows the governor to close liquor stores in the interest of law and order or public morals. Governors traditionally have closed liquor stores on Christmas Day, Thanksgiving, New Year's Day and July Fourth.

Gubernatorial spokesman Will Folks says Sanford wanted to end government interference on a nonreligious holiday. Folks says bars, clubs and restaurants have been able to sell liquor on those holiday and got an unfair advantage.

Bob Blessing with Green's Liquor Store near the USC campus says the only problem is Sanford didn't give them enough time, "Unfortunately we had already planned with our scheduling for that to be a day off with our liquor store business."

Danny Brazell with the Department of Revenue says notification time should have been sufficient, "We hope that people have had time to make this decision. They've had about a week. In the business world that should be enough time to make the decision." The Department of Revenue says they do apologize to stores for the late notice.
    
WIS called around to several liquor stores in the Midlands and most of them plan to close on the 4th.

By Catherine Reynolds
Updated 7:33pm by BrettWitt with AP