Getting alcohol-related measures to the ballot in Northwest Arkansas proved far easier this year than history predicted.
Petition drives to put retail liquor sales on the ballot in Benton County failed in 2008 and 2006. The last effort to make it to a vote was in 1944, yet the question going before voters in November had petition signatures to spare.
A similar vote will happen Nov. 6 in Madison County. Springdale and Tontitown also will vote on allowing liquor sales on Sunday. Such sales are already allowed the rest of the week in those cities.
Organized opposition to the measure has coalesced in a new group called Citizens United to Preserve Benton County. Religious opposition to the issue was always strong, but attention is spread too thin among other issues, opponents said.
Both opponents and supporters say the biggest factor in getting the measure to voters this year was how well financed and organized the campaign was compared to prior efforts.
“Opposition never was the problem. In fact, I wish we’d had more organized opposition. It would have gotten the drive more attention,” said David Routon of the 2006 and 2008 efforts. The Bentonville businessman was active in those earlier attempts to get retail liquor sales on the ballot in Benton County.
“The real barrier always was the number of petition signatures you had to get,” Routon said.
Getting a vote this year required petitions signed by 41,171 registered voters from the county. That’s 38 percent of the county’s registered voters. This compares to 53,194 total Benton County votes cast in the last governor’s election.
“This was never going to be done by six or seven people passing around a clipboard once in a while,” Routon said. This year’s measure got to the ballot through the efforts of Keep Dollars in Benton County, a local group that has raised $525,000 to date, according to state Ethics Commission records. The group has support from members of the Walton family, which founded Walmart.
There was organized opposition to the petition drive, but none that concentrated on that one issue, said Tom Hatley, pastor of the Immanuel Baptist Church in Bentonville.
“As long as there are Bible-believing churches, there will be organized opposition,” he said.
Nationally, locally and statewide, Christians simply have too many contests, he said. Issues such as abortion, gay marriage, legalized gambling and efforts to loosen restrictions on drugs absorb attention.
“We’re fighting battles all over, and this is a single issue in a single county,” Hatley said of Benton County’s liquor vote. “We can’t just camp on one issue for three months like we used to.”
That does not mean opponents to Benton County going wet will neglect the issue.
“The truth needs to be dispensed at the right moment,” Hatley said.
That moment has arrived, said spokesman John Gore of Citizens United to Preserve Benton County. The group is raising money to campaign against making Benton County wet. It is the first such group to announce plans to register with the state Ethics Commission in a formal anti-liquor campaign.
The group started with eight people who began meeting four weeks ago to look at ways to stop passage of the initiative, Gore said. Members have since contacted all the churches in Benton County. The group hopes to raise around $30,000 to pay for a direct mail and billboard campaign. Opponents also plan to hand out information at the First Friday event on Oct. 5 on the Bentonville square, Gore said.
“I think the key is getting the information into people’s hands,” he said. “There are a lot of people on the fence on the issue. I think the facts will sway a lot of people to keep the county dry.”
Jim Phillips, president of the Springdale Liquor Association, headed the successful petition drive to have Sunday liquor placed on the ballot in Springdale. Phillips compared the Sunday prohibition of selling alcohol to an earlier ban on selling some items on Sunday, called Blue Laws. The Blue Laws prohibited the sales of many items, including clothing, housewares, building materials, radios and televisions on Sundays, according to Arkansas Act 135 of 1965. The Arkansas Supreme Court struck down the law in 1982.
“Other businesses can open on Sundays,” Phillips said. “It doesn’t seem fair that alcohol is singled out.”
Alcohol might be singled out because of the effect it has on people, said Cliff Jenkins, pastor of New Hope Church in Springdale.
“In my 35 years as a minister, I have worked with a lot of people who had alcohol problems,” Jenkins said. “It can be devastating to them and their families.”
Jenkins said Sunday sales was not a major issue to him.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Jenkins said. “I’m against any sale of alcohol, anytime and anywhere. But I don’t think selling on Sunday will make that much of a difference. If people want alcohol, they will get it.”
Society is changing and becoming more permissive, Jenkins said.
“Even though alcohol is a depressant, people think they can’t have a party without alcohol,” he said. “They think they can’t enjoy a party without drinking.”
Steve Caraway contributed to this report.