New Brockton residents may vote on alcohol sales

By Carole Brand
Published: January 31, 2010

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New Brockton residents may soon have the chance to vote on whether to legalize alcoholic beverage sales inside the city limits.
If more than 140 signatures are collected from registered voters on a petition favoring alcoholic beverage sales, the referendum on the wet/dry issue will be included on the June 1 primary election ballots.
If residents don’t favor sale the sale of alcoholic beverages inside the New Brockton city limits, they can also sign the petition against the proposal.
Each person who signs the petition, which is available at town hall and other locations throughout the town, must be a registered voter in New Brockton.
New Brockton Mayor Lenwood Herron said the 140 signatures favoring alcoholic beverage sales are needed to get a municipal option election placed on the ballots for the June 1 elections.
“First of all, we need the registered voters in New Brockton to sign the petition just so we can get this on the ballot,” he said. “The petition states the question in the form of ‘Do you favor the legal sale and distribution of alcoholic beverages within the town of New Brockton?’ People can then vote yes or no on the ballot. We have to have these petitions signed just to give people a chance to vote on it.”
Last year, Gov. Bob Riley vetoed the chance for smaller towns in Alabama to be able to vote on the legal sale of alcohol inside of city limits. The bill was resurrected in the Alabama Senate and was passed to allow citizens to have the right to vote on the issue.
Alcoholic beverage sales are currently prohibited in all of Coffee County except the cities of Enterprise and Elba.
“I believe that our citizens should have the right to vote on this issue that will affect their town and the progress of it,” Herron said.