Cedar Bluff voters decide future of alcohol sales

By Scott Wright

Voters in Cedar Bluff will decide today if allowing alcohol sales to continue at a handful of convenience stores and restaurants is a benefit or a nuisance. 

Since the town of around 1,500 went wet in August 2003 (sales did not begin until April 2005 because of legal challenges), beer and wine have generated nearly $600,000 in taxes for the town. 

The referendum was sold to the townspeople by then-Mayor Bob Davis in part as a way to generate additional funds for Cedar Bluff High School, and since ’04 the town has donated almost $107,000 to the school for use in non-academic activities, mainly athletic and playground equipment. 

Despite a six-year legal battle over the constitutionality of the vote that often pitted neighbor against neighbor, there was little campaigning for or against alcohol sales until last week, when a group of local business owners began running a series of “Vote Yes” ads in local newspapers and on WEIS-AM radio. 

There is apparently no organized effort to oppose the continuation of alcohol sales. The only roadside signs visible in Cedar Bluff today urged residents that "Cedar Bluff deserves a YES vote." In 2003, the Cedar Bluff First Baptist Church led the fight against alcohol sales, prominently displaying in its front yard an automobile that allegedly had been involved in a drinking-related traffic fatality.

Seven years later, the town is sitting on over $197,000 from alcohol tax collections, but officials have been reluctant to spend the money because of concerns of continuing legal fees from the battle to allow sales to continue. 

The town has paid out in excess of $182,000 to attorneys since a group of anti-alcohol residents called "Citizens Caring for Children" sued to try and reverse the election shortly after the vote passed overwhelmingly – over 70 percent of 888 voters approved of alcohol sales.  

After that lawsuit was settled out of court in 2005, a second suit brought by William Geral Greene, a resident who has since moved from Cedar Bluff, continued the legal battle for several more years. 

The Alabama Legislature recently passed a law allowing any municipality in a dry county with at least 1,000 residents to holding a wet-dry referendum. 

The previous state law had set the minimum population figure at 7,000, but a local bill passed by the Legislature in early 2003 granted Cedar Bluff the right to hold its election. 

It was the uncertain legality of that law that sparked the court fight and led town officials to try and put the matter to rest by holding a second election.