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Alabama House passes bill that would allow any municipality in state to vote on alcohol sales The Alabama House of Representatives approved a bill Tuesday to allow any municipalities in the state- regardless of population- to vote on the sale of alcoholic beverages. The vote was 46-38 with Rep. Marc Keahey, D-Grove Hill, and Rep. Thomas Jackson, DThomasville, voting for the bill. Keahey, in a telephone conversation while headed home from Montgomery Tuesday evening, explained that the bill could clear up confusion regarding the local option laws that permitted the municipalities of Jackson and Thomasville to vote to legalize alcohol sales. State law permits municipalities in dry counties with populations of 7,000 or more to vote on the question. The law also permits cities of 4,000 or more in counties where there is already a wet municipality to vote on the question too. Some municipalities under the 7,000 threshold have gotten around the state law by relying on a part of the 1901 Constitution that wet proponents say gives municipalities the right to regulate alcohol. Local option bills have been passed for specific municipalities- such as Jackson, Monroeville and Thomasville- that allowed votes in those lessthan 7,000 cities. Cedar Bluff in Cherokee County was the first to use such a local option law to hold a wet-dry referendum for municipalities of less than 7,000. That law is being challenged in the courts now and dry proponents say if they are successful in overturning sales in Cedar Bluff, they will turn their efforts elsewhere. Keahey, a lawyer, said he questioned the constitutionality of the local option laws that skirt the 7,000 population figure but he also wonders about the constitutionality of arbitrarily setting a cutoff of 7,000. He said it wasn't right to pick a population figure out of the air that would prohibit voters of a municipality from deciding the issue. Rep. Jimmy Martin, D-Clanton, sponsor of the bill, said the bill would give all municipalities the same right. Rep. Richard Laird, D-Roanoke, an opponent of the bill, said that is just the problem, that there are 180 municipalities in Alabama with populations less than 7,000. Martin's bill retains the provision that requires a petition containing signatures of 25 percent of a municipality's voters who voted in the last general election to call for a wet-dry referendum. In dry Clarke County, municipalities that would gain the right via the bill would be Grove Hill, Coffeeville and Fulton. That is assuming Jackson and Thomasville retain their current wet statuses. In dry Washington County, incorporated municipalities include Chatom, McIntosh and Millry.
The bill now goes to the State Senate and if it passes there would have to be signed by the governor to become law.
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