History About To Be Made In Area

Anumber of establishments will soon make history in Benton and Madison counties, legally off ering liquor for sale for the fi rst time in decades.

It will mark a successful dry-to-wet policy shift brought about by determined petitioners.

Last November, petitioners pushed the issue to the ballot in both counties, which have had no legal liquor sales since the 1940s, then won easy voter approval.

The state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board last week approved the necessary liquor store permits for the fi rst applicants, clearing three stores in Madison County and 39 stores in Benton County. All are conditional permits and more permit applications remain on hold.

The board granted conditional permits to stores in Huntsville and Hindsville and near Marble. The permits granted in Benton County are mostly proposed for Bentonville and Rogers, although some are in smaller communities. Just one liquor store is allowed for every 4,000 residents in a county, or three for Madison County and 55 for Benton County.

The ABC Board this week also cleared applicants for four available permits in a third Arkansas county. Voters in Sharp County approveda wet-dry measure last year, too. Permits went to the fi rst four of 44 lottery participants from there.

The hearings culminate a long process that involved at least 300 possible applicants. There might have been as many as 100 more, according to ABC administrative assistant, Judy Chwalinski.

Responsible for tracking requests for applications and scheduling hearings, Chwalinski said the agency “just stopped counting at 300” as application requests streamed into the oft ce. The monthslong review of them has been a dift cult challenge for the agency, which has simultaneously been reviewing renewal applications for 4,000 existing permits in Arkansas, she said.

Applicants who survived staff scrutiny participated in a random lottery drawing in June. Ten applicants in Madison County and 69 in Benton County were eligible to draw for the available permits.

Applicants from Madison and Sharp counties were fi rst up onTuesday, the fi rst of three days of board hearings that collectively lasted roughly 18 hours.

For some Benton County applicants, the review process will continue in September, after a 30-day period for appeals.

Fourteen applicants denied permits or opponents of any of the permits granted by the board may appeal board decisions to circuit courts.

Among the reasons for denial are locations deemed too close to churches or schools, failure to show for scheduled hearings and having fi nancial interest in another Arkansas liquor store. (An applicant may legally have ownership in only one permit.)

Only a handful of the permit applications drew opposition from neighbors.

Voters in all three counties last year approved alcohol sales by solid margins. While grocery and convenience stores could begin selling beer and wine in January, the stand-alone liquor stores had to be vetted fi rst by ABC staff, then selected through the random drawings before the ABC Board got involved.

Naturally, the competition has been greater in the much more populous Benton County.

Many of those who requested applications never applied for permits.

Others were scratched when ABC agents investigatedtheir applications.

When the ABC Board turned its attention to the rest, the board approved conditional permits for 39 of the 55 applicants originally scheduled for hearings. A hearing for one more was continued after late discovery of a possible location confl ict.

Those eventually denied permits, either by the board or through the appeals process, will be replaced fi rst by 14 more applicants who drew lottery numbers higher than 55. There could even be opportunity for additional applications, if original lottery participants don’t win the remaining permits.

So the November elections have already given way to the permitting of 46 new businesses in three counties with more to follow.

Only one that cleared the permit hurdle is actually ready to open.

The rest still have work to do to satisfy permit requirements, to complete renovations or even to build their buildings.

The one ready-to-go business is in Sharp County. So consumers in Benton and Madison counties must wait a while longer to buy liquor legally from any of these stores.

BRENDA BLAGG IS A FREELANCE COLUMNIST. EMAIL COMMENTS OR QUESTIONS TO [email protected].

Opinion, Pages 10 on 07/21/2013

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