Voters in four cities in the northwest part of the state will head to the polls next month to decide whether to allow the retail sale of liquor on Sundays. The issue is on the ballot in Springdale, Tontitown, Ozark and the small town of Lead Hill in Boone County.
The sale of alcohol in restaurants is permitted on Sundays in many areas of the state, but only a few cities allow the “off-premises” sale of liquor on Sundays. Off-premises sales include those at liquor stores and other retail outlets.
According to the Alcoholic Beverage Control Administration Division, Sunday off-premises sales are allowed within the city limits of Wiederkehr Village and Altus in Franklin County; Briarcliff, Salesville and Norfolk in Baxter County; Eureka Springs in Carroll County; Pyatt in Marion County and Diamond City in Boone County.
Jim Phillips, head of the Springdale Liquor Association and owner of several liquor stores in the city, said the prospect of voters in Benton and Madison counties approving alcohol sales (not including Sunday sales) prompted him to push for the Sunday measure.
“We thought we’d have a loss of revenue as a company, and as a city from a tax perspective,” Phillips said.
If the measure passes, Phillips said he hopes shoppers throughout the area will be drawn to Springdale, not just to purchase alcohol but to patronize other businesses.
He also hopes it will keep them from crossing the border to Missouri to purchase alcohol on Sundays.
“It will give people one less reason to go to Missouri to shop on Sunday,” he said. “When people go to Missouri no one in Arkansas gains.”
‘LESS OF AN ISSUE’
Sunday liquor sales have long been taboo in the Bible Belt and for generations “blue laws” in many states restricted shopping options on the Sabbath, but church history scholar Bill Leonard said times have changed.
“Churches would probably rather it didn’t happen,” he said. “But it’s so deep in the culture now that I think it’s less of an issue for even some of the more conservative churches.”
Leonard, professor of Baptist studies and church history at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., said many young evangelicals are expressing an openness to the moderate use of alcohol that their parents and grandparents shunned.
The drinking of wine is mentioned often in the Bible and Leonard said “from a biblical perspective you can make a strong case for the moderate use of alcohol, but from a literal biblical perspective you can’t make much of a case for total abstinence.”
Leonard said most major Protestant denominations permitted moderate use of alcohol during the Colonial period all the way to the Civil War era. Anti-alcohol sentiment paralleled the rise of religious revival meetings in America, he said, and opponents of alcohol began speaking out not just about the evils of drinking but the damage it could do to families and communities.
“By the late 19th century the whole anti-liquor movement had really taken off,” he said. “It was one of the great crusades that united conservatives and progressives.”
Conservatives, Leonard said, saw consuming alcohol as a religious issue. Once a person had come to know Jesus Christ, he should regard his body as a temple of the Holy Spirit and not foul it with alcohol, he said. Progressives came at the issue from a social angle, professing that alcohol was a major source of social collapse.
“They joined together to fight a common problem,” he said.
OPPOSITION LACKING
In Ozark, pastor Kendall Ross said he hasn’t heard much opposition to the Sunday-liquor ballot measure in his city. North Franklin County is already “wet” and in those areas alcohol can already be sold every day but Sunday.
Ross, pastor of Ozark Free Will Baptist Church, is against the measure for religious and social reasons.
“My perspective is more alcohol sales is not the direction we need to be going,” he said. “Ultimately if we allow more alcohol sales, some of that alcohol will reach the hands of our kids and that’s a problem here in Franklin County.”
Ross said Free Will Baptists believe the Bible is clear that “alcohol leads to violence, poverty, sorrow and immorality.” For Free Will Baptists, abstinence is the only answer, he said.
Ross said even though he’s firmly against the measure, he won’t preach against it in church.
“I think my responsibility is to preach God’s word and I believe if I stoop to the level of preaching politics from the pulpit I’ve distorted the Gospel,” he said. “My desire is for us as Christians to become known for transforming lives not legislation. I think we can become a great example other people would want to follow rather than forcing our beliefs on other people.”
The Rev. Ronnie Floyd, pastor of Cross Church, a megachurch with campuses in Springdale, Fayetteville and Rogers, said he also is unaware of any organized religious opposition to the Springdale measure. But he is concerned about the issue.
“We are concerned anytime more people are given greater access to alcohol,” he said. “I propose, is there really anything good ever to come out of alcohol in today’s world? Alcohol and its use is linked to many major problems within family and society.”
Floyd’s church, as part of the Southern Baptist Convention, is against the use of alcohol. Southern Baptists have approved many resolutions concerning alcohol in their history, most recently in 2006 in which they expressed their “total opposition to the manufacturing, advertising, distributing and consuming of alcoholic beverages.”
For Leonard, the possibility of more Sunday alcoholsales isn’t surprising, even in the Bible Belt. He thinks it’s all a part of what he calls “the changing sociology of Sunday,” which is reflected, in part, by the drop in church attendance.
“Some studies show that these days some of the most active members of Protestant churches may only attend church services 40 percent of the time,” he said. “Sunday has changed so dramatically and there are so many things they have to do on Sunday they just can’t get it in. ... Going to church and eating out and going back on Sunday night, it’s just over.”
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 11 on 10/14/2012