Group may seek second vote on alcohol sales

A group of local citizens say alcohol sales in some Corbin restaurants is an idea that’s overstayed its welcome.
To that end, about 45 people gathered Saturday afternoon at the Corbin Church of the Nazarene, on Master Street, for an organizational meeting to get the issue on the Nov. 2006 ballot.
“We just want to get people involved so we can start forming some committees and get some key people and the community involved against this issue,” Church of the Nazarene Pastor Lonnie Storms said. “Anytime there is alcohol, there’s always problems. If you look at the people in Corbin it’s already touched and affected their lives … it’s something we don’t need.”
Corbin voters gave approval to a referendum in May 2003 that allowed restaurants in the city that seat 100 or more people to sell alcoholic beverages. Since, six restaurants have acquired a liquor license.
Storms said direct mail advertising that claimed many well-known chain restaurants would locate in Corbin if alcohol sales were allowed deceived many voters.
“I think they were totally deceived because [the organizers] knew they weren’t going to come,” Storms said. “The restaurants they said were going to come aren’t going to come because there’s not enough people here.”
Paul Litter, a member of the church and former Ohio night club owner, said he’s spearheading the effort for a revote in 2006 because he fears proponents of alcohol sales will lead the city down a slippery slope.
“If it remains, the wet crowd will ask for even more … package sales maybe, or just outright bars, a lot of stuff that has nothing to do with food.”
Litter said he was baptized in 1985 and, shortly thereafter, gave up drinking alcohol and forfeited his nightclub license.
Anti-alcohol organizers stress they don’t want their effort to be a church-only thing, and are encouraging wider base community input.
The 2003 referendum won by 212 votes. Jim Vance, a Corbin businessman and investor who was the principal organizer behind the vote, said he thinks another vote on the issue is unnecessary.
“I think we’ve gotten some pretty nice restaurants out of this,” he said. “You’ve got people that have spent $750,000 up to $1 million in this community on these places. They’ve made a significant investment. This would destroy them.”
Vance claims about 250 new jobs have been created since restaurants were allowed to sell alcohol and points to increased tax revenue for the city: $53,891 since January of this year alone.
“I can promise you, bootleggers don’t pay taxes,” Vance said. “That’s all we had before.”
He also said repealing alcohol sales would hamper any new civic center constructed on the south end of town.
“It would be disastrous for a new convention center,” he said. “It’s just like shooting it in the foot. A lot of the people in the convention business want alcohol sales. It would really, really hurt that.”
Himself an investor in the restaurant business, Vance said an Italian chain restaurant called Rotelli’s should be up and running within eight months just off Cumberland Falls Hwy.
Rex Ledford, who attended the anti-alcohol meeting Saturday, said he felt like alcohol sales were a “shame and a curse on our city.” He added that, if repealed, he doesn’t feel sorry for investors that opened restaurants based on alcohol sales.
“It seems like there’s incidents every day, fights or a car wreck or something. It’s brought adult bookstores into our community along with some other filth we don’t need. I hope a few of the good people that sit back and did nothing will get involved this time.”
To get the issue on the ballot, state law requires a petition with signatures from eligible voters within the area affected equal to at least 25 percent of total votes in the last general election. The petition cannot be circulated for longer than six months prior to any election.
If enough signatures are garnered, they must be turned into the county Judge-Executive for verification. The Judge-Executive then sets an election day for no earlier than 60 days and no longer than 90 days after the petition is filed.
A local option election regarding alcohol sales can only be held, on the same issue, once every three years.