diff --git a/config/settings/container/base.py b/config/settings/container/base.py
index 6836614f4acbc500dcd0c0cc56407d302f9dfe62..de7e7859b7e3df386fc574193ce23713ffd728a1 100644
--- a/config/settings/container/base.py
+++ b/config/settings/container/base.py
@@ -72,6 +72,22 @@ AWS_SES_REGION_ENDPOINT = get_from_env('AWS_SES_REGION_ENDPOINT',
 ALERT_EMAIL_FROM = get_from_env('DJANGO_ALERT_EMAIL_FROM')
 
 
+# Priority server settings ----------------------------------------------------
+PRIORITY_SERVER = False
+is_priority_server = get_from_env('DJANGO_PRIORITY_SERVER', None,
+    fail_if_not_found=False)
+if (isinstance(is_priority_server, str) and
+    is_priority_server.lower() in ['true', 't']):
+    PRIORITY_SERVER = True
+
+# If priority server, only allow priority users to the API
+if PRIORITY_SERVER:
+    # Add custom permissions for the API
+    default_perms = list(REST_FRAMEWORK['DEFAULT_PERMISSION_CLASSES'])
+    default_perms = ['api.permissions.IsPriorityUser'] + default_perms
+    REST_FRAMEWORK['DEFAULT_PERMISSION_CLASSES'] = tuple(default_perms)
+
+
 # Database settings -----------------------------------------------------------
 DATABASES = {
     'default' : {
diff --git a/config/settings/container/production.py b/config/settings/container/production.py
index ddd14cac0bffcfd6bd4e9197cdf3fb9f895c1e08..8022a81d82ffac3786aa5bdcf956cb99c151297f 100644
--- a/config/settings/container/production.py
+++ b/config/settings/container/production.py
@@ -1,5 +1,4 @@
 # Settings for a production GraceDB instance running in a container
-from django.core.exceptions import ImproperlyConfigured
 from .base import *
 
 DEBUG = False
@@ -9,21 +8,6 @@ SEND_XMPP_ALERTS = True
 SEND_PHONE_ALERTS = True
 SEND_EMAIL_ALERTS = True
 
-# Priority server?
-PRIORITY_SERVER = False
-is_priority_server = os.environ.get('DJANGO_PRIORITY_SERVER', None)
-if (isinstance(is_priority_server, str) and
-    is_priority_server.lower() in ['true', 't']):
-    PRIORITY_SERVER = True
-
-# If priority server, only allow priority users
-if PRIORITY_SERVER:
-    # Add custom permissions for API
-    default_perms = list(REST_FRAMEWORK['DEFAULT_PERMISSION_CLASSES'])
-    default_perms = ['api.permissions.IsPriorityUser'] + default_perms
-    REST_FRAMEWORK['DEFAULT_PERMISSION_CLASSES'] = tuple(default_perms)
-
-
 # TP, March 2019: for now, it looks infeasible to use multiple databases
 # since there are many operations which normal LVC users can do that
 # do a write and then a read very soon after.  And we can't rely on
@@ -33,6 +17,7 @@ if PRIORITY_SERVER:
 # reworked properly.  I.e. this is a much bigger project than expected
 # so we're going to have to revisit it at some point.  We'll leave the
 # config here for now.
+# if not PRIORITY_SERVER:
 #    # If not a priority server, we use the read-only replica database
 #    # for reads and master for writes.
 #    # The username, password, and database name are all replicated