A belated follow-up to the vote Tuesday in Mountain Home to allow the off-premise sale of beer, wine and spirits on Sunday:
The measure was approved 1,376 for and 1,191 against.
I got the update from Lang Zimmerman, a phone company executive and member of the Arkansas Economic Development Commission, who organized the petition drive that put the measure on the ballot. Under a 2009 Arkansas law, any city or county can call a referendum on Sunday sales and a few have done so. Where the governing bodies don’t act, voters can mount a petition drive.
I’ve said before that it is 11 years past time for Little Rock to join the 19th century on Sunday alcohol sales. A petition drive may be in the offing for that this year, using canvassers at work on the new proposal to establish non-partisan legislative redistricting in the state.
Zimmerman tells me he’s heard from several other places interested in light of Mountain Home’s success. In an email, he offered information that might encourage an effort in the state’s capital:
I had no personal interest in the measure’s passage. I don’t own a liquor store or grocery store or convenience store. I am the chairman of Big Creek Golf & Country Club, but we don’t sell off-premise alcohol. I just thought it was an outdated and illogical prohibition and decided to do something about it via petition as the law allowed. Even after the certification of the necessary valid signatures by the county clerk, two city council members voted “no” to even refer it to a vote of the citizens.I got the petition drafted after talking to a liquor store owner in Saline County where they passed it [retail alcohol sales, but not Sunday sales] on a county-wide basis. I got three of the four liquor stores in Mountain Home to help me gather signatures. No advertising dollars spent at all.