Editor's note: This
article was amended on Nov. 3 to clarify that there have been no formal
discussions among members of the Centre City Council regarding a proposed
alcohol ordinance. The Post inadvertently misquoted Mr. Chandler, who meant
only that he himself had reviewed ordinances from other cities in the state.
The Post regrets the error.
CENTRE — “Vote Yes on
Nov. 2nd at City Hall.” “Stand Up to Stay Dry. Vote No.”
Campaign signs
first dotted the roadsides a couple of weeks ago. Ads began
appearing in The Post on Oct. 4. WEIS-AM listeners are currently
being inundated with pleas to head to Centre City Hall on election
day.
Every Centre
resident is being asked to pick a side over alcohol.
Glen Chandler got
the debate started this spring, not long after the passage of a new
state law allowing wet-dry referendums in any municipality with at
least a thousand residents. The Centre councilman created, copied
and distributed petitions to local convenience stores.
“In 1987, Ed
Yarbrough and I tried this,” Chandler said. “When they passed this
new law a lot of people came to me because they knew I was for it
before.”
Weeks late, a few
hundred signatures had accumulated on the petitions. After city
officials verified that enough of those names belonged to Centre
residents, the Council approved a wet-dry vote on Sept. 14.
Even after the
vote was set for Nov. 2, opposing sides kept to themselves – at
least for a while. A few weeks ago, however, a group of local
churches combined to form Concerned Citizens of Cherokee County and
soon began filling newspaper pages and local airwaves with arguments
against legalizing sales.
Rev. Wendell
Dutton, who heads the Cherokee Baptist Association, said choosing to
fight this particular battle was an easy one for his organization
because of what he perceives as the unique nature of the city, as
well as the moral and biblical implications of alcohol.
“The thing about
Centre is, it's the hub of activity in this county,” Dutton said.
“This is a countywide community. Because of that, the people in
Gnatville, the people in Blanche, the people in Key all identify
with Centre. That's the reason why we've gotten behind this.
Whatever happens in Centre is going to affect every corner of this
county.”
Chandler said
that despite the push by alcohol opponents, there is no stopping the
flow of alcohol into the area.
“There's a lot of
stuff going around about 'vote no',” Chandler said, “but I believe
70 percent of the people in this county have alcohol in their
homes.”
Promoting the
idea that alcohol is already plentiful is largely how Chandler and
other proponents have chosen to frame their push for legal sales.
“The city is not
dry now, it's just that Centre doesn't get any of the taxes from
it,” Chandler said. “All they have to do is drive five miles to buy
it.”
Dutton said the
current level of acceptability of alcohol in the county is no reason
to make accessibility any easier.
“I think the
thing we need to understand is when you make something more
accessible, more available, it's going to provide people with an
opportunity to get it where otherwise they might not,” Dutton said.
“That's one argument that's always thrown out there, that it's
already here. Prostitution has been around longer than anything else
in the world, but we still have it and we still stand up against
it.”
Speaking of the
world's oldest profession, Chandler said one of the Association's
print ads, which implied an unavoidable connection between legalized
alcohol sales and the spread of prostitution, was the reason he
decided to speak out.
“I know they've
got to do their thing, but that doesn't have anything to do with
this alcohol vote,” he said.
Dutton said he
sees nothing wrong with painting a mental image in voters' minds of
what he and his supporters believe a yes vote could possibly lead to
in the future.
“There's nothing
graphic there, the ad just talked about alcohol-related activities,”
Dutton said. “My personal opinion, I wasn't offended by it. What
we're hearing from the community of faith about our ads is 'good
job, keep it up'.”
Chandler said
voters have put their trust in local elected officials to make sound
decisions – something he said will continue to happen in Centre if
alcohol sales are approved. Chandler said he has already begun studying existing ordinances from as many
as eight wet municipalities in Alabama.
“All the members
of the Council are in agreement that, if the vote is yes, the
ordinance will be written the right way,” Chandler said. “Bars, and
drinking, and fighting – we're not going to have that in Centre.”
Chandler said
early financial estimates from a conversion to wet appear promising.
He said he's
talked with officials in Fort Payne who told him that their switch
to legal alcohol sales added around $800,000 to the city's $8
million annual budget.
“Just going by
that 10 percent figure, if the same held true for us, I think we
could add around $250,000 to $300,000 annually,” he said. “If it
does pass.”
Financial records
provided to The Post earlier this year by the town of Cedar Bluff —
which, with around 1,500 people, is roughly half the size of Centre
— show that alcohol sales there generated just over $125,000 in
2009.
Chandler said any
additional funds could be used to enhance city services, including
the police and fire departments.
“We eventually
want to buy a new fire truck and hire a full-time fire department so
the city's ISO rating (currently a 5 on a scale of 1-9) will drop to
a 4 and homeowner's insurance will go down,” he said. “We'd also
like to help the city schools with things like increasing handicap
accessibility, and weight room improvements at the high school.”
Dutton and his
supporters believe any increase in revenues from alcohol sales would
come at a high price.
“The Council on
Alcohol Abuse did statistics and evaluated revenue from alcohol
versus expense. Their figure was that every dollar of revenue costs
fifteen bucks,” he said. “The only people who stand to make a
killing from this is the alcohol industry. Alcohol is not the cash
cow it is made out to be.”
Chandler said he
has called officials in other towns in dry counties that have gone
wet in recent years. He said they all told him the same thing when
he asked about drinking and driving.
“If the town's
dry, people are going to drive somewhere else to get it, if they
want it, and maybe start drinking on the way back,” Chandler said.
Dutton didn't
dispute the claim that legalizing sales could result in a drop in
DUI arrests. However, he proposed that a drop in one type of crime
could lead to a rise in another.
“I have a good
friend who is an elected official in a neighboring county,” Dutton
said. “He said that in his area, DUIs had gone down but there was a
much higher number of domestic violence calls since going wet. Weigh
one against the other.”
That's what
voters in Centre will be asked to do on Nov. 2. The vote will take
place from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at City Hall.