Mrs. V, that is an excellent post, and it describes politics in those areas in general. But if those people don't have a problem incorporating their Christian values in those small communities' legal codes I don't really have a problem with it. The problem comes when you do it in larger communities. Aren't parts of Dallas dry.
Yes, however, the ability to get a liquor license and sell alcohol throughuse of things like the Unicard or "private memberships" makes the "dry" aspects apply mostly only to retail outlets. And having it go by areas rather than whole cities is always strange. In my neighborhood, you can only buy beer and wine, but even that is only allowed to be sold in parts of the city. So, if I go North one block, there's no alcohol at all sold. If I go South one block, I can buy beer and wine at the convenience stores or grocery stores. I had roughly the same experience in Arlington. And you had to drive to Fort Worth to be able to buy hard liquor in a store (but it was pretty readily available in restaurants and bars).
I didn't even know dry counties existed in North America until i was in a small town up north. Many of the people of the town had had alcohol problems, (the town had lots of poverty, few jobs, etc, etc) . The guys on council I spoke to said it was for the good of the people -- to give them a chance -- and reluctantly, I found myself agreeing. The 'other' solutions just hadn't worked. Thinking back now, in the luxury of my cushy office, not in the middle of their depression, i find the civil libertarian in me coming up with all sorts of reasons why the policy was wrong. But if i went back, i would again see why the 'dry' status was really for the best. As Max said...we really can't relate unless we're there. Although with 100K in the area, the policy does seem out of place. And 30,000 just to get the issue to the ballot is absurd.
Almost 50% of a restaraunts profit is in liquor and wine sales. I don't understand the dry county issue, if you don't like liquor then don't drink, but don't infringe upon the people who do want a nip now and again. DD
Well yesterday the ABC voted and approved a private club permit for the restaurant I mentioned in my first post. That makes 12 now in the county. You can read more at the website I gave.
Amen. I think it silly for a bunch of prudes to tell people what they can and can't put in their bodies. What is the logical argument for dry counties? Not like you can't go nearby to another and buy beer to consume on Sunday. Damnest thing was when I lived in Tuscaloosa, beer was not allowed to be sold on Sunday period (Dahlonega is the same way) so the big sports bar (Wings, owned by UA and NFL legend Bob Baumhower) served only cokes on Sunday. Cokes!? When I ran for City Council in Dahlonega, I had getting rid of all the blue law ordinances on the book as priority one in my term. The incumbent called me a moral degenerate for that idea during a debate. He said that it would lead to drunk driving, wife beatings and other things. I asked him where was his evidence and he stammered. I asked him who gave him the right to tell people what they could and could not drink. Snickers were heard from the audience. Needless to say, the major protestant churches in town did not support me and I got my clock cleaned in the election.
Yeah, there's one or two, especially in the Wisdom Literature, like Proverbs 19:21: (btw, you can search the bible for keywords at www.biblegateway.com to find answers to questions like these.) Mostly, the Bible has bad things to say about drunkeness. I wouldn't say there is much criticism of moderate drinking. Of course, there are many who disagree. I wouldn't bother pursuing a line of argument based on hypocrisy or theological misunderstanding.
Uh, yeah, because if most people have to drive 30 miles to grab some beers, no one will ever open one before they get home. I'd have voted for you just on that issue!
Now if I could convince 2000 more folks we'd be set. I got under 1,000 votes in a city of 3,600. It was a real downer. But I'm still on the zoning board and I do attend council meetings.
I was thinking in terms of arguing against a dry-county policy by challenging the theological basis for the policy, since, in the South at least, much of the support for prohibition stems from a Southern Baptist aversion to alcohol. And while I think their position on alcohol is unbiblical, I wouldn't really want to challenge them on it either, neither would I bother trying to persuade them that the Bible doesn't teach what they think it does about alcohol, because they likely have a theological system established in which that reading makes perfect sense. So, I suppose what I'm saying is I was having a little conversation with myself in my head while replying to your post, and one sentence of that conversation slipped out without any context -- actually two, since it is tied in conceptually with the "many would disagree."
