
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 13, 1991                   TAG: 9102130499
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: BEDFORD/FRANKLIN 
SOURCE: ROB EURE and DAVID M. POOLE STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Medium

LIQUOR-BY-THE-DRINK BILL OK'S IN SENATE

Franklin County restaurants near Smith Mountain Lake may be selling Bloody Marys by next summer, under a bill approved by the Senate Tuesday.

The measure, which has already passed the House of Delegates, will allow voters to decide if they want liquor by the drink in individual voting districts instead of on a countywide basis.

It also allows referendums on liquor sales every two years instead of every four.

Franklin County's two districts that border the lake are expected to be the first places the new law is used. Residents of those areas approved liquor by the drink in 1988, only to be outvoted by residents in the southern end of the county.

Del. Clifton Woodrum, D-Roanoke, sponsored the measure, which passed the Senate on a 26-10 vote. Sen. Virgil Goode, D-Rocky Mount, spoke against the bill, saying it could lead to a "hodgepodge" of laws within Franklin County.

Goode also said allowing the issue to come up every two years would mean that people will be able to "vote it in, and then vote it out, and then vote it in again."

Sen. Dudley Emick, D-Fincastle, endorsed the bill, saying that "counties are developing on a non-uniform basis," causing different areas to have different desires on liquor sales.

"Some must have their cocktails out, as opposed to the more rural areas that prefer their cocktails in," he said.

A technical amendment to the bill made in the Senate is expected to win easy approval from the House, sending the measure to Gov. Douglas Wilder.

Restaurateurs and developers near the lake have argued for years that cocktail sales would stimulate growth. But their efforts failed in 1984 and 1988, when voters on the other areas of Franklin have opposed the liquor sales.

Last year, a Northern Virginia delegate attempted to bypass the voters altogether with a measure that would have allowed mixed-drink sales within two miles of the Smith Mountain Lake shoreline. But a Senate committee killed the bill after Franklin County residents complained that the legislature was usurping the prerogative of local voters.

Emick said this year's bill was an improvement because it preserved the referendum.

Franklin County could vote on the matter this November if supporters gather enough signatures to place it on the ballot.

Keywords:
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by CNB