Two Counties Belly Up To Bar

One quote aptly summed up the end to the successful campaign to allow retail alcohol sales in Benton County.

“Our work is done,” said Marshall Ney, spokesman for Keep Dollars in Benton County. “It’s time for private enterprise and the free market to go to work.”

Clearly, private enterprise is accepting the call. The state Alcoholic Beverage Control Division has already responded to requests for more than 200 applications for permits.

Many are for groceries, convenience stores and restaurants that want to sell beer and wine. Plus, there is something of a gold rush going on for the limited number of liquor stores that will be allowed in Benton and Madison counties, where voters also approved retail alcohol sales in the Nov. 6 general election.

Those potential alcohol sales are the fruits of the Keep Dollars in Benton County campaign and of a similar eftort in Madison County, both of which had been “dry” counties until the election changed everything.

The Benton County eft ort was the more impressive simply because the countyis so much bigger and the hurdle so much higher to gather the necessary signatures to allow the vote.

There, it took a private investment of more than $700,000 to circulate the petitions and publicize the eftort leading up to the election.

In all, Keep Dollars in Benton County raised $702,039 for its campaign with Steuart and Tom Walton, brothers and Walmart heirs, contributing $632,438 of that sum.

Businesses and other individuals provided the balance of the money.

The challenge, of course, was to collect signatures of 38 percent of the registered voters in the county, or 41,171 valid signatures. Earlier eft orts couldn’t make that hurdle.

What apparently made the difterence was the expertise of National Ballot Access, a Georgia company contractedto gather the signatures. The company received $472,270 for its services, which was well more than half of the money raised by Keep Dollars in Benton County.

The rest of the money went to consultants in Little Rock, North Little Rock and Fayetteville and to lawyers in Rogers, according to reports filed with the Arkansas Ethics Commission.

As Ney said, that work is all done. Every dime raised for the cause is spent, and the organization has fi led dissolution papers with the Arkansas Ethics Commission.

The result of all that eftort should be a signifi cant boost to the Benton County economy as existing grocery and convenience stores seek unlimited permits to sell beer and wine and entrepreneurs pursue the limited liquor store permits.

The liquor store limit is set in state law and based on population: one store per 4,000 residents. Benton County’s limit is 55 permits. More than twice that number of applications had been requested by early December.

Madison County will only get three liquor stores, but at least three times that many applications are already expected.

Although many forms have gone out, state regulators haven’t begun to accept applications for liquor stores. When they do, there will be a two-month window to submit applications, and each will be reviewed by ABC agents.

Ultimately, the luck of the draw will determine who gets these prized liquor store permits, assuming the ABC agents verify the applications. The sites must meet a variety of state requirements, such as not being located within 1,000 feet of a church or school, to be verifi ed.

All the verifi ed applications will eventually go into a container, and the first 55 drawn could get the initial permits.

There will be opportunity, of course, for public objections to any given permit at hearings before the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board.

Still, it is just a matter of months before liquor sales begin in Benton County and sooner yet for beer and wine to hit the shelves of grocery and convenience stores.

BRENDA BLAGG IS A FREELANCE COLUMNIST AND LONGTIME JOURNALIST IN NORTHWEST ARKANSAS.

Opinion, Pages 10 on 12/30/2012

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