Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 12, 1991 TAG: 9104120584
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The problem, Montgomery County Deputy Sheriff Martha Spencer predicted, will be checks that bounce.
It will be up to local officers to serve the warrant if a bad check comes in, she said, and this would be an extra burden on a system already overloaded.
Jim Smith, a retired ABC district store manager, said he opposed the check sales because bounced checks will create extra problems for stores.
The board was in Roanoke for one in a series of town meetings that have been held all over the state.
Besides considering the use of checks to buy liquor at state stores, the board also has included the possibility of using credit cards.
Smith said after the meeting he didn't think credit cards would be as much trouble as checks, although overuse could cause individual problems.
Board Chairman George M. Hampton Sr. said he thought the two speakers "had expressed the opinion of the Roanoke area" on the use of checks or credit cards in liquor stores.
Jerry Hunter of the Orange Market convenience store chain said underage people are trying to buy beer in greater numbers.
He said that current laws leave stores like his "with nowhere to go with the evidence" of such attempts.
He said someone under 21 will go from store to store until he finds one that will sell him beer without identification.
He said phony identification cards can't be confiscated "because they have not broken the law until they purchase."
Kenny Stoneman, the ABC's district agent-in-charge, said that attempting to buy alcohol illegally is a violation of the law.
But he said he knows that a conviction would be difficult.
The board also was asked to back revision of laws that allow revocation of licenses if an establishment becomes a meeting place for homosexuals.
Michael Blankenship said a license can be revoked if homosexuals are employed.
Blankenship, who represents Virginians for Justice, said he realizes the board doesn't pay attention to those laws anymore, but they still are on the books.
They have the effect of "penalizing the mere status of being homosexual in orientation," he said.
The board also was told that there should be no change in current regulations that allow relatively cheap banquet licenses for fund-raising events for charity - such as Roanoke's First Friday at Five on the City Market.
The Virginia Restaurant Association has said the rates are unfair to restaurant owners.
Any change would have to be made by the General Assembly.
by CNB