Alcohol petition falls short in Jacksonville

Chamber doesn’t submit signatures

The Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce did not submit the remaining 1,415 signatures it needed to bring to a vote whether to legalize alcohol sales and manufacturing in most of the city and its surrounding area, the Pulaski County clerk’s office said Friday.

The chamber had until the end of business Thursday to submit the signatures to the clerk’s office, and that deadline was extended to Friday after snow and ice closed the clerk’s office, Assistant Chief Deputy Clerk David Berman said.

The chamber did not turn in the signatures, telling Berman it did not have enough and that it was hoping Senate Bill 373 — which lowers the number of signatures needed for a similar alcohol measure — would be signed into law by Gov. Asa Hutchinson.

“We are waiting for the legislative process to work itself out and will react ac-

cordingly,” said Roger Sundermeier, president of the chamber’s board.

Attempts to reach chamber Executive Director Amy Mattison and Jacksonville Mayor Gary Fletcher, who also supported the petition, were unsuccessful Friday.

SB373, passed by the Senate on Monday and passed by the House on Thursday, would lower the percentage of registered voters’ signatures needed to bring forth a vote on allowing on-premise alcohol sales at hotels and restaurants from 38 percent to 15 percent. That’s a smaller scope of alcohol sales than what was sought in the original petition, which would have allowed a vote on liquor stores, alcohol sales in grocery stores and manufacturing.

A vote on moving fully from a wet to dry area would still require 38 percent of registered voters’ signatures, said bill sponsor Sen. Jane English, R-North Little Rock.

The chamber first turned in signatures at the end of January, needing 5,008 to have a ballot initiative certified. About a week later, the clerk’s office informed the chamber that it could verify only 3,593 qualifying signatures from the lot.

That started a 30-day period to collect the remaining signatures for the same petition.

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.

In Jacksonville, Mattison and Fletcher have argued that allowing restaurants to sell alcohol without obtaining a private club license is important for attracting restaurants.

They both noted the success of the Chili’s restaurant in town but said other restaurants don’t want to jump through the hoops of a private club license.

English echoed Mattison and Fletcher, noting that chain restaurants want to be full-service restaurants.

“Chili’s is already out there,” she said, although adding that private club licenses are a “hassle to go through.”

English said the restaurants would also appeal to people who don’t drink alcohol.

“People want to have a nice place to go dinner. … You can have iced tea if you don’t like alcohol,” she said.

Proponents of the alcohol sales have argued that they would be economically beneficial to the city as well.

A University of Arkansas at Little Rock study commissioned 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.