Charleston, South Charleston and Nitro have begun the process of using home rule to allow earlier alcohol sales on Sunday mornings.
The cities had to give notice of a public hearing at least 30 days before the hearing takes place, to stay on track to allow alcohol sales as early as Aug. 1.
After holding a public hearing, the cities will have to present their case to the Muncipal Home Rule Board on July 11.
If their proposals get approved, the cities will be allowed to pass an ordinance allowing restaurants, wineries and private clubs to sell alcohol on Sunday mornings.
"To me it's not that big of a deal," said South Charleston Mayor Frank Mullens. "But if the cities around us are putting this in place, I wouldn't want to put the city of South Charleston at a disadvantage."
There are five cities in Kanawha County that could enact the law via home rule - Charleston, South Charleston, Dunbar, Nitro and St. Albans.
Dunbar Mayor Terry Greenlee said that Dunbar will wait to see how the home rule process goes in other cities before it makes a decision on whether to use home rule to relax its laws around alcohol sales.
"At this point, we have not really discussed it yet," Greenlee said. "We're kind of wait-and-see to see what everyone else is going to do first."
St. Albans Mayor Dick Callaway could not be reached Friday for comment. St. Albans did not run an ad in Friday's Gazette-Mail indicating that the city was having a public hearing about the bill.
While Charleston, South Charleston and Nitro have begun the process to create an ordinance under home rule, none have guaranteed that they will pass an ordinance allowing alcohol on Sunday mornings.
Even if the ordinance is approved by the Home Rule Board, the city councils of each city will have to vote on the ordinance.
Charleston got the idea to use home rule to pass the relaxed alcohol bill after Shepherdstown successfully used the pilot program to allow for alcohol sales in May.
The crusade among the cities has caused some hesitation at the county level. The law passed in this year's legislative session gave counties the ability to allow citizens to vote on the alcohol sales in November.
The Kanawha County Commission elected not to put the issue of relaxed alcohol sales on the ballot because Commission President Kent Carper said he didn't know if anyone outside of Charleston wanted Sunday morning alcohol sales.
When asked what restaurants in their city might benefit from Sunday morning alcohol sales, Greenlee and Nitro Mayor Dave Casebolt had to think.
Greenlee suggested that Los Agaves Mexican restaurant in Dunbar might be able to take advantage of the relaxed law, but couldn't think of many other places.
"It's not a big deal for us," Greenlee said.
Casebolt said that Mardi Gras Casino will benefit because they'll be able to sell alcohol at the greyhound race track on Sunday mornings.
"I see how it can benefit the track," Casebolt said. "How much it will benefit the track, I don't know."
And while Casebolt said that the process is underway, he's not expecting the vote to be an easy one.
"I know there's going to be opposition to it," Casebolt said. "And I can see both sides."
Reach Daniel Desrochers at dan.desrochers@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-4886 or follow @drdesrochers on Twitter.