Harrison Daily Times

YELLVILLE - John Barleycorn will be welcome in Marion County, if Jim Wilson has his way. The District 3 JP is spearheading a drive to put an alcohol sales issue on the November ballot.

According to Arkansas law, the issue can be put to a vote if 38 percent of the county's registered voters sign a petition requesting it. Wilson and a large group of volunteers have been soliciting signatures for the petition since January. Arkansas law mandates that wet-dry votes take place in general election years.

Wilson told the Daily Times this week his group is very close to having the required number of signatures.

The former Memphis, Tenn. resident, who has lived in Flippin since 1987, explained his reasons for wanting to see the issue on the ballot.

"We stay barely above water, trying to pay bills," said the county official. "We're a poor county. If we get the county wet on the November ballot, it will not change my life in any way, except there's a good possibility, with the new bypass, that we could get a Red Lobster or an Outback Steakhouse or an Olive Garden. Those restaurants won't come into a dry county, because they make 75 percent of their money off booze sales."

Wilson reeled off a list of benefits alcohol sales could bring to Marion County. "Booze tax, property tax, employment, restaurants," he said. "The idea that we want to keep Marion County the way it was 75 years ago just won't float anymore."

Individual towns in the county can decide to remain dry, Wilson explained. "Yellville can get up a petition, and if they get 10 percent of the registered voters to sign it, they can be a dry town in a wet county," he said.

Not everyone in Marion County thinks allowing alcohol sales would be beneficial.

Rev. Jack Jefferson, associate pastor of First Baptist Church of Flippin, raised some questions when speaking to the Daily Times this morning.

"What about the family issues?" the father of three asked. "What about the divorce rate? What about bankruptcies? What about the person who spends all his money on liquor? What about the physical abuse that alcohol can bring to the children of the home or the spouse? What about the ruined lives that allowing alcohol sales could bring? Is the additional tax money worth it?"

Jefferson said, "Marion County is a poor county. There are families just above the poverty level, and a lot below it. This alcohol thing is staring them in the face. It's got a lot of bad potential for them."

The Flippin native said that he thinks Wilson is being unrealistic about the potential benefits of alcohol sales in Marion County. He doesn't believe that restaurants like Olive Garden or Red Lobster would come into Marion County anyway, at least not in the next few years.

"And all that sales tax money will go to Little Rock, except for one percent of it that will come back to Marion County. One percent's not going to be a great number."

Jefferson, a former member of the Flippin school board, said one of his biggest concerns is underage drinking. "I know if they want it, they can get it, but why make it easier for them?"

Some people want alcohol sales and some people don't, Jefferson said, but he doesn't believe the county will vote to go wet if the issue makes it to the ballot.

"The ones who want it are going to have to show up and vote, and the ones who don't are going to have to show up and vote," the Baptist minister said. "We're taking a stand for morality and family values."

Both newly-elected county judge Kenneth Oxford, who will take office in January, and current county judge Charlie Trammell went on record during their campaigns as supporting the people's right to vote on the wet-dry issue.

History of "dry" laws
Laws regulating the sale of alcoholic beverages are not a new thing in America. In 1777, the Continental Congress urged the state legislatures to legislate "an immediate stop to the pernicious practice of distilling grain, by which the most extensive evils are likely to be derived, if not quickly prevented."

The nation's first statewide prohibition law was enacted in 1915 by the Arkansas general assembly.

National prohibition was enacted in 1919 with the passage of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibited the manufacture, sale, importation and transportation of alcohol in the entire United States.

Prohibition was the law of the land until 1933, when the passage of the 21st Amendment ended national prohibition, but gave the states the power to continue to enforce prohibition if the people so desired.

According to information from an exhibit at the Old State House Museum last fall called "John Barleycorn Must Die: The War against Drink in Arkansas":

"Though the Prohibition Movement in the early 1900s is a significant milestone in our national history, the crusade against alcohol had an even earlier history in Arkansas. Its beginnings took shape during the 1700s when the French occupants of Arkansas Post traded liquor with the Quapaw Indians for grain. When the Spanish took control of the Post in the 1760s, alcohol trade with the Quapaw became prohibited. At first these restrictions produced widespread resentment within the tribe, but Quapaw leaders came to support prohibition as the chiefs noted the harm that liquor caused their people.

"During the next 100 years, temperance organizations took root in towns throughout the state. One powerful group, the Women's Christian Temperance Union, began in Ohio in 1874, and merged in Arkansas in 1881, after the organization's second president, Frances Williard, traveled to the state promoting the creation of state WCTU chapters. The first local state chapter was formed in Monticello in 1876. In 1899, the Anti-Saloon League, an all-male organization, was chartered. Arkansas' WCTU existed until the 1980s. Arkansas became "bone dry" even before national prohibition became a reality."

Forty-three of Arkansas' 75 counties are currently dry. The majority of those counties lie northwest of a line from Blytheville to Texarkana.