A petition to reverse Newton County's ban on retail alcohol sales failed to get enough signatures to appear on the county's November ballot.
Denise King, owner of the Mount Judea General Store, said she didn't turn copies of the signed petition in to the Newton County clerk's office because she was about 250 signatures shy of the 2,250 needed to get the issue on the ballot. Monday was the deadline for petition signatures in Newton County.
King said efforts by an area religious organization to discourage residents from signing the petition did not influence her decision not to turn in the signatures.
Over a period of about six weeks, quarter-page advertisements ran in each edition of the weekly Newton County Times, promising to display copies of the signed petitions in the First Baptist Church in Jasper "for those who want to check to see if their name or the name of an elderly or incompetent person may have been signed fraudulently."
David Faught, senior pastor at the First Baptist Church, said the ads were not intended to intimidate residents nor shame them out of signing the petition.
King said Tuesday she was not planning to gather signatures for a new petition in 2016 because she believed that the Arkansas Alcoholic Beverage Amendment, the statewide petition to overturn the ban on retail alcohol sales in all counties, will be successful.
If the initiative fails to gather enough signatures to appear on the statewide ballot in November, or if it appears on the ballot but does not pass, King said she may reconsider.
Let Arkansas Decide, the group sponsoring the Arkansas Alcoholic Beverage Amendment, missed its July 18 deadline to present more than 78,000 signatures in support of the petition.
However, the Arkansas secretary of state's office granted the organization an additional 30 days to gather the approximately 17,000 signatures still needed for the petition to appear on the state-wide November ballot.
Metro on 08/09/2014