Alcohol-sales push 1,415 signers short

Jacksonville chamber pursuing signatures by March 5 to secure a vote

A petition seeking a vote on legalizing alcohol sales and manufacturing in most of Jacksonville and its surrounding area fell short of the necessary 5,008 signatures, the Pulaski County clerk’s office said Tuesday.

The Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce has until the end of business on March 5 to collect 1,415 more signatures to get the measure on the ballot, or start the process over.

Chamber Executive Director Amy Mattison said last week that her office had sent in at least 5,000 signatures but was continuing to gather more.

On Tuesday, Assistant Chief Deputy Clerk David Berman said the clerk’s office could only verify 3,593 qualifying signatures, which are nonduplicate signatures belonging to qualified voters.

“I knew we’d be short, but I didn’t know that short,” Mattison said Tuesday.

The chamber must now collect nearly 50 signatures a day to meet the clerk’s office deadline, Mattison said, adding that her office has lists of registered voters to target and that workers will go to voters who say they want to sign the petition.

Jacksonville and its surrounding unincorporated area — along with parts of Sherwood — have remained “dry” while the rest of Pulaski County has been “wet” because of two elections in the 1950s in Gray Township, which encompasses much of northeast Pulaski County.

Since the 2013 passage of Act 1018, which allowed for the identification of voting districts that originally passed the alcohol measures, the Jacksonville, Sherwood and North Little Rock chambers of commerce have been gathering signatures to overturn prohibitions on alcohol.

In 2014, the North Little Rock areas of Park Hill and part of what is now Lakewood and Indian Hills voted to overturn a 1966 ban on alcohol sales.

A movement to overturn a 1956 ban in the north part of Sherwood is in the works, but officials haven’t submitted the required 4,752 signatures, or 38 percent of registered voters who live north of Maryland Avenue.

The Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce submitted its signatures Jan. 26.

The push for alcohol sales is an effort to give the city more of an advantage in trying to attract full-service restaurants, Mattison said.

“We do have a Chili’s here, and it does really great,” she said. But other restaurants don’t want to “jump through the hoops” of becoming a private club just to be able to serve alcoholic drinks.

A University of Arkansas at Little Rock study commis- sioned by the chamber determined that Jacksonville has a total of $601,219 in “unmet demand” for full-service restaurants, or restaurants with food and alcoholic drink options.

Full-service restaurant sales, the study concluded, would generate between $3,006 and $9,018 per year in sales tax revenue for the city.