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June
16, 2011
Early
voting on northern Hatteras mixed drink referendum begins June 23
By IRENE NOLAN
One-stop
absentee voting on a liquor-by-the drink referendum in the northern
Hatteras Island villages will begin on Thursday, June 23.
Voters
in Kinnakeet Township, which includes the villages of Rodanthe, Waves,
Salvo, and Avon, will go to the polls on Tuesday, July 12, to decide
whether they want to allow mixed drinks to be served in restaurants,
which can currently serve only beer and wine.
Before July 12,
registered voters in the villages can cast an absentee – or early –
ballot at the Dare County Board of Elections office, 954 Marshall C.
Collins Dr. in Manteo.
The one-stop, absentee balloting is
available from Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. until 5 p.m.,
beginning on June 23 and continuing through July 7. On
Saturday,
July 8, the Board of Elections office will be open from 8:30 a.m. until
1 p.m.
Registration for village residents who want to vote in the referendum
will also be available at these times.
The northern Hatteras villages are now the only towns or villages on
the Outer Banks that cannot serve mixed drinks.
Ocracoke
has had liquor by the drink for four years. The southern
Hatteras
villages of Buxton, Frisco, and Hatteras voted to allow mixed drinks
last December, and Manteo, the last holdout among the county’s
incorporated towns, voted to allow mixed drinks on June 7 – by a margin
of 61.5 for and 38.4 against.
A vote in November of 2007on all
of Hatteras Island was defeated. Organizers of that effort
waited
the required three years and got the question back on the ballot after
a petition drive last summer.
Last year, the organizers included
only Hatteras Township – the southern villages – in the referendum,
since the 2007 vote was very close in Buxton, Frisco, and Hatteras and
it was more soundly defeated in the northern villages.
Hatteras
Township approved liquor by the drink by a margin of 63 percent in
favor and 37 percent opposed, and many restaurants in the southern
villages began serving mixed drinks late last winter.
The northern Hatteras villages got another petition drive underway this
winter, so they too could serve mixed drinks.
In
early May, the organizers turned in a petition signed by the required
25 percent of the registered voters in Kinnakeet Township, and the
county The Board of Elections set the vote for July 12.
Fred
Sawyer, who owns The Froggy Dog restaurant in Avon with his wife,
Denise, doesn’t want to see the northern Hatteras villages become the
only place that residents and visitors can’t buy a mixed drink.
“This can only help the community,” Sawyer said, adding that tourists
expect to be able to order a cocktail.
“I’ve had more and more people leave when they find out we don’t serve
liquor,” Sawyer said. “It happens every night.”
All of the Hatteras restaurant businesses should be able to operate on
a ‘level playing field,” he said.
Right now in Avon, he said, it’s a “sit back and wait” attitude.
“We
really will have to get the people out to vote,” Sawyer
adding.
And he knows that can be a problem in the middle of the busy tourist
season.
“I am afraid that some people just have an assumption that it will pass
without their votes,” he said.
“All
that we can hope for is that the people who signed the petition will
vote,” said Jomie Price of Mack Daddy’s restaurant in Avon.
She
added that she isn’t hearing a lot of discussion about the referendum –
for or against.
The main opposition to serving liquor by the drink has come from
churches.
Rev.
Bryan Gray, pastor of the Avon Worship Center, was part of the
church-based community that opposed the island-wide referendum in 2007
and the vote in December in the southern villages.
“Vote No”
signs lined Highway 12 in 2007. The signs were absent in
December
but there was a mailing the week before the referendum opposing it.
Earlier this week, Gray said that he knew of no plans at this time to
actively oppose the July 12 referendum.
“All that we know,” he said, “is that everyone will have a vote.
He said he still opposes mixed drinks because they detract from the
culture of Hatteras Island as a family vacation spot.
Rev. Roger Dill, pastor of St. John's United Methodist Church in Avon,
said:
"Regarding
the local referendum soon to be before the residents of the northern
section of Hatteras Island: Alcohol by the drink is easy to oppose
culturally (traditional thinking on the island). Alcohol abuse is
closely linked to abusive behavior which disrupts families, is a factor
in many accidents (vehicle or otherwise), and leads to unproductive
life styles to include other drug use. However, passing or defeating
this referendum will not affect these conditions which already exist on
the island. Emotional
tunnel vision aside--the referendum is a moot point."
If the referendum fails again, there cannot be another vote for three
more years.
Fred Sawyer isn’t taking any chances.
He
has “permits in hand” to build two tennis courts, which would qualify
the Froggy Dog as a sports club. According to state law, establishments
that qualify as sports club can get a license to sell liquor by the
drink.
That’s what Ron Lemasters, owner of Down Under Restaurant
in Rodanthe, did earlier this year. He built two tennis
courts
and got an ABC permit to sell mixed drinks.
Establishments can qualify as a sports club by adding two or more
tennis courts or an 18-hole golf course or both.
An
18-hole golf course if about out of the question for Hatteras Island
restaurant owners, but two tennis courts is feasible in some cases.
Sawyer says he hopes the referendum passes and that he doesn’t have to
go the sports club route.
“It would be fairer,” he said if all restaurants operated on that
“level playing field.”
The
polls will be open from 6:30 a.m. until 7:30 p.m. on July 12.
Anyone with questions can contact the Dare County Elections Office at
252-475-6530 or 252-475-5631.
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