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Valdese may vote on alcohol March 2

By Steve Welker | The News Herald

Published: November 16, 2009

Updated: 11/17/2009 06:00 am

Valdese, NC - Voters here will decide, probably on March 2, whether to permit the sale of malt beverages, wine and mixed drinks and an ABC Store in Burke County's second-largest city.
The Burke County Board of Elections on Monday unanimously agreed that a petition drive produced enough signatures of registered Valdese voters to require the vote.
"They needed to have 1,049," said Greer Suttlemyre, director of the board of elections. "There were 1,501 signatures. Some for whatever reason — perhaps they weren't registered — were rejected. And 1,130 were validated."
The county board of elections immediately will ask the State Board of Elections to approve the vote on Tuesday, March 2. By law, the election must be held between 60 and 120 days after the petition is certified — no later than March 16 in this instance.
Suttlemyre said his board will ask the state board to approve early voting, which could start on Feb. 11. He also said there may be a single polling place for the election.
Ben Cozort was the chairman of Citizens for New Business in Valdese, the group that led the petition drive. The campaign started officially on Aug. 21. They had until Nov. 19 to collect signatures from at least 35 percent of the town's registered voters.
"It really took combined work by a lot of people," he said Monday. And the hard work isn't over, he added. "You could say more of the hard work will continue," Cozort said.
He said the group previously discussed when the vote might be held and already agreed March 2 would be a good date. February's weather, they felt, was too uncertain.
"We still need a little time to campaign," he said, "but we're organized pretty good now."
About 20 people from Citizens for New Business in Valdese conducted door-to-door canvassing on Saturday mornings, visiting every part of the community.
"Most of the people that we met were pretty responsive to it," Cozort said. "Even those we thought probably would vote 'no' on election day agreed to sign it because they thought the citizens of Valdese should have an opportunity to vote on it. They accepted what we were doing. We didn't hear much of a moral issue — hardly at all."
He said Citizens for New Business in Valdese tried to emphasize what the group's name implies: that allowing alcohol sales would bring more business activity to the community, such as restaurants.
"We talked about the economics of what it means, too," he continued. "We had examples from other towns of what it meant for utility bills, taxes, providing jobs and improving current businesses."
Cozort, a retiree from Valdese Manufacturing who describes himself as "a die-hard Valdese resident," said he believes the thousands of dollars from taxes on liquor sales will help replace some revenue the city lost when manufacturing facilities closed.
The Burke County Board of Elections will finalize the ballot language at a later date, but Cozort said he expects voters will see four questions in the form of, "Should the town of Valdese permit...
n On- and off-premises sales of malted beverages?
n On- and off-premises sales of unfortified wine?
n An ABC Store?
n The sale of mixed beverages in hotels, restaurants, private clubs, community theaters and convention centers?
"On-premises" means consumption on the site where alcohol is purchased, such as a restaurant. "Off-premises" means for consumption at another place; in other words, sales in a grocery store or other licensed facility.
Valdese last voted on beer and wine sales and an ABC store in 2002. The proposition lost by about 50 votes.