Barling is preparing to try again to change state law to let individual cities in dry counties vote on allowing liquor sales.
City attorney Matthew Ketcham said he is drawing up a resolution for the Barling Board of Directors to consider at its Feb. 25 meeting that would ask the Arkansas Municipal League to support the change in the law. He said he didn’t know yet whether the resolution will ask only for the league’s backing or ask that the league take the lead in seeking the change.
The change wouldn’t go before the Arkansas General Assembly until the regular session next year. But Ketcham said the resolution must be submitted by May 16 to give the league’s advisory committees time to review the submissions from cities across the state and decide what to recommend for the league’s legislative agenda.
The league members will vote on the legislative agenda at their semiannual convention June 18-20 in Little Rock, Executive Director Don Zimmerman said.
Under the current law, Ketcham said, cities in dry counties - like Barling - cannot vote to go wet, but cities in wet counties can vote to go dry.
The law, passed in Arkansas in 1942, sets the different rules for the cities, he said.
“If this is passed, it will do away with dry counties and will be based on a cityby-city basis,” Ketcham said. “It will put cities on an equal footing, and they are not now.”
Barling found out about the law the hard way in 2012 when its residents voted to allow liquor sales, but the election results were voided by a circuit judge after a legal challenge was filed in Sebastian County Circuit Court.
Barling residents voted 1,082 to 544 on Nov. 6, 2012, to allow liquor sales. But Circuit Judge Stephen Tabor voided the results, citing a 1947 Arkansas Supreme Court decision.
Because of that decision, Tabor ruled, since the entireGreenwood District of Sebastian County - that portion of the county outside Fort Smith of which Barling is a part - voted to bar liquor sales, the whole district had to vote to permit liquor sales. Barling could not vote independently to allow them.
Barling City Director Bruce Farrar, the main proponent of the Barling measure, went door-to-door stumping for alcohol sales in 2012. He said it is unfair that cities cannot control their own fates within their boundaries. He said it is important to all cities in the state that are in dry counties to have the right to choose for themselves whether to allow liquor sales.
Allowing liquor sales in Barling would be an economic asset, proponents say. Ivy Owen, executive director of the Fort Chaffee Redevelopment Authority - which is marketing surplus Fort Chaffee land in Barling- said allowing liquor sales in the town would increase sales-tax revenue, and spur tourist and restaurant traffic. He also said it would be a catalyst to the development of a mall being planned for Barling.
“I don’t see any downside to it in the city of Barling,” Owen said.
Now, those tax dollars are driving through Barling to Fort Smith. Farrar said he’s sat outside a liquor store in Fort Smith just outside of Barling and seen car after car drive in from the east where liquor is not sold, buy liquor and drive back into the dry part of the county. Barling could be getting the tax dollars from those customers, hesaid.
“It’s very important to get this law changed,” he said.
He said he and other city officials are going to contact officials and legislators of cities across the state that are in dry counties next to wet counties to build support for changing the law.
Barling tried unsuccessfully last year through state Sen. Jake Files, R-Fort Smith, to change the law. Files introduced Senate Bill 1073 that proposed to amend Initiated Act 1 of 1942.
While Barling was not in his district, Files said, he decided to sponsor the bill because he thought the current law was unfair and archaic.
The bill proposed to delete paragraphs that barred votes by cities in dry counties from going wet and added new wording:
“A city, town, or municipality may have an election under this title to permit or prohibit the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors as defined under [Subsection] 3-8-201 regardless of whether the county or district in which the city, town, or municipality is located permits or prohibits the manufacture or sale of intoxicating liquors.”
The Arkansas General Assembly’s website said the bill was filed March 11. It was referred to the Senate Committee on State Agencies and Government Affairs on March 18 and died there May 17 when the legislative session ended.
Ketcham said he thinks the bill failed because it was filed too late in the session and didn’t have united, organized support.
Files said he thinks the bill failed because of intense lobbying against it. Support of the bill from the Municipal League next year will not guarantee its passage, he said.
He said he didn’t know if he would introduce another such bill in next year’s session.
Farrar said the main opponents of the change in the law are liquor-store owners because it would increase competition for customers.
The Arkansas Beverage Retailers Association didn’t return a call seeking comment Friday.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 02/17/2014