State Backs A Jigger Of Reality

Oh, my Daddy, “He’s so sly;

“He drinks wet, “But he votes dry!” - Prohibition era poem; author unknown olks in Benton County long claimed to live in the wettest dry county in the land. Truth be told, drinkers in every dry county said the same thingabout their home, because the circumstances are the same regardless of population, geography or demographics: Consumption of alcohol is not only an ancient human practice, but a ubiquitous one. Nothing, not even an amendment tothe mighty U.S. Constitution, could trim the hair of the dog. A legal restriction against the ingestion of potable spirits was no match for the ingenuity and persistence of the lubricated masses.

When Prohibition was repealed in 1933 and liquor was once again legal in the U.S., some pockets of the country tried to cling to the failed policies of the Volstead Act. That so many communities tried to remain “dry” is in part a testament to the resolve of righteous teetotalers. But it is also an indictment of the kind of political cynicism that spawned the corny little verse above. While some folks felt no compunction about drinking themselves, they worried a powerful lot about whether someone else was doing it, or at least about who was making a buck selling it.

Last fall, the folks in Benton County dropped the charade. The county’s voters overwhelmingly approved a measure to “go wet.” Beer and wine are now available at the finest convenience stores and grocery outlets. Full-fledged liquor marts will soon follow. Gone are the jokes about racing to the county line on New Year’s Eve or testing granny’s “medicine” brewing out back.

But remnants of our hypocritical past keep popping up in the form of state laws intended to make it as diffcult as possible to legalize booze.

For example, for hotel and restaurant owners in the newly wet Benton County, a public vote to authorize liquor by the drink sales was still required even after going wet. This is more than a technical adjustment: Without such approval, hotels and restaurants would have to continue to purchase spirits from retail outlets rather than wholesale distributors, where prices are lower. Never mind that the proliferation of and lax enforcement around “private clubs” had long ago convinced most residents that liquor by the drink was already approved.

To the rescue came the state Legislature, which passed Act 1008 of 2013, giving city councils and quorum courts the authority to grant permission for liquor by the drink without a public vote. The legislation goes into eftect in July, simplifying the law and removing undue restrictions on businesses. It won’t allow for the rapid propagation of stand-alone bars, whose licenses must still be approved by the state and controlled with local zoning regulations.

Some will argue that, despite the perception that alcohol consumption is an acceptable pastime, the community will sufter from drink’s darker side eftects. Indeed, the horrific results of alcohol abuse are reported in this newspaper far too often.

But that was true before Benton County went wet, and was certainly the case during the nation’s failed attempt at prohibition in the last century. Staying dry would not have immunized us from such social challenges, any more than going “wet” will create a new den of iniquity. These legal changes do, however, more accurately reflect the society that already exists.