Attorney: Vote For Liquor Sales Invalid

Lawyer challenges Sebastian County

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

— The Sebastian County Election Commission disenfranchised voters when they allowed only Barling voters to decide whether to vote on liquor sales in their part of southern Sebastian County, an attorney argued in circuit court Monday.

Erik Danielson of Booneville is representing 21 Sebastian County residents challenging the Nov. 6 Barling liquor vote as invalid. Since the entire southern district of the county voted in 1944 to go dry, they argued, state law says only the entire district, not just Barling, must vote to go wet.

The southern district of the county includes all of Sebastian County outside Fort Smith.

Circuit Judge Stephen Tabor did not make a decision on the lawsuit Monday but told attorneys in the case he would rule after giving them one week to submit written arguments.

Kenny Bailey of Lavaca, a part of the county’s southern district, testified during the 45-minute hearing that when he voted on Nov. 6, there was no liquor question on his ballot. He said he would have voted against the measure if there had been.

Danielson read into the hearing record the namesof 13 other county residents who he said would have voted against the measure as well if given the opportunity.

Barling voters approved the liquor sales question in their town 1,082 to 544.

Prosecuting Attorney Dan Shue, who represented the election commission in Monday’s hearing as the county’s attorney, had asked Tabor to dismiss the suit because the three-person commission committed no wrongdoing in holding the election.

Shue said he and the election commissioners agreed that the law was that Barling voters could not vote by themselves to authorize liquor sales in their city.

But the election commission was not the party taken to court over the matter, he said. He said its role was to hold the election after County Clerk Sharon Brooks certified the Barling petitions as sufficient to call for the election.

Tabor said he disagreed with Shue, that the commission was the proper party forthe action and he denied the motion to dismiss.

Brooks testified Monday she was requested by Barling residents to certify petitions submitted for an election on allowing liquor sales in Barling.

The certification approved by her office on March 16 stated that the petitions contained “38 percent of qualified and registered electors of Sebastian County, Arkansas.”

Under questioning by Danielson, Brooks said the number of signatures on the petitions she certified, 956, would not have been enough to certify an election of the entire southern district of the county. There are more than 24,000 registered voters in the county’s southern district.

The Alcoholic Beverage Control Division has received several requests for liquor licenses in Barling since the election, Shue told Tabor in a Dec. 17 hearing on the lawsuit. Division director Michael Langley said in September he would not issue any licenses in Barling barring a court decision because the entire district did not participate in the election.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 01/01/2013