No Wasted Effort
By Lana F. FlowersROGERS -- Fewer Benton County voters will have to sign a petition to bring a question of allowing selling packaged liquor to the ballot, if the Legislature passes a bill that could be introduced in the upcoming January session.
State law now requires 38 percent of Benton County's 96,451 registered voters to sign a petition to bring to the ballot the question of allowing the county to go wet.
Bill Adams, a justice of the peace and former Benton County judge candidate who spearheaded a petition drive earlier this year, said he is giving the petitions to state legislators.
"I am doing that because I promised all the citizens who signed the petition I would help them get through the government process," Adams said.
He and others were trying to gather enough signatures to bring the question of allowing packaged liquor sales to the ballot. Petition drive organizers did not get the required signatures by September, the cutoff for verifying signatures in time to get the issue on the November general election ballot.
The petition drive netted 16,000 to 20,000 signatures, well short of the 36,651 needed to reach the threshold of 38 percent of the county's registered voters.
Adams said the collected signatures and petitions will be used as evidence to show the 38 percent requirement is "arbitrary, capricious and difficult."
"They are looking at proposing on a state level a change to that statute to say it should be 38 percent of those who voted in the last county judge's election," Adams said.
That would reduce the requirement in Benton County to 5,882 signatures, as 15,479 registered voters cast ballots in the county judge's primary race decided in May, according to the County Clerk's Office.
"What we are going to do is try to bring a little bit of sense and rationality to it," Adams said.
He said he spoke with State Sen. Dave Bisbee, R-Rogers, who reportedly would be willing to propose the legislation to reduce the signature requirement.
Bisbee did not return two calls left on his home/business answering machine between 11 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. Friday.
Benton County is dry now, without packaged liquor stores.
However, residents don't have to go thirsty. They can acquire cosmopolitans, a cold Miller or a bottle of Chateau St. Michelle Riesling at one of the county's 107 private clubs, according to records from the state Alcoholic Beverage Control administrative division.
Benton County residents who want a bottle of hard liquor or wine or a case of beer have to drive to Washington County, where there are 34 retail liquor stores, according to the Alcoholic Beverage Control division.
They also cross the Missouri and Oklahoma state lines to buy liquor.
David Routon of Parachuting Penguins, a family-owned graphic design and printing firm in Bentonville, also was involved in the effort to get the wet/dry question on Benton County ballots.
The collected signatures were valid only to bring the wet/dry question to the 2006 general election ballot. Any effort to bring the question to a vote again will require a new petition drive, Routon said.
He said he'd still be involved in the petition drive, but would not have the time to spearhead it.
"You need to have someone who takes this thing on as a day job. Their job is to get petitions out, their job is to organize it, their job is to publicize it, and I think this will get passed easily," Routon said. "What we are talking about is a safer way to consume alcohol, which is go buy it, take it home and drink it."