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

DATE: SATURDAY, September 4, 1993                   TAG: 9309040197
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Lon Wagner
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

LIQUOR BY THE DRINK MAKES IT ONTO BALLOT

A petition calling for a referendum on liquor by the drink in a lake district of Franklin County was submitted in time to get the issue on the November ballot.

Friday, the deadline, the petition was in Circuit Court Judge B.A. Davis III's hands waiting for him to write an order to put the issue on the ballot in the Union Hall voting district.

With Franklin County in mind, the General Assembly passed a bill in 1991 that allowed individual voting districts to hold referendums on liquor sales. A 1988 countywide referendum had failed - but voters in the Union Hall and Gills Creek lake districts had approved sale of liquor by the drink.

Gills Creek voters approved liquor sales in a 1991 referendum. But Union Hall voters defeated the proposal 930-789.

The Blue Ridge, Blackwater and Snow Creek districts also will have referendums, on land-use zoning. Residents successfully lobbied the Board of Supervisors, then the General Assembly, to hold the referendums.

The General Assembly this year passed a bill to allow the referendums, which will be only "advisory." The supervisors still will have the final say.

by CNB