Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 12, 1995 TAG: 9501140003
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: W-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHARLES STEBBINS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NEW CASTLE LENGTH: Long
Jim Greenway, owner of Brizs, a restaurant in the New Castle area, said liquor by the drink would increase the county's tax revenue and would keep at home the cash Craig residents spend on alcoholic beverages in neighboring communities.
A referendum on liquor by the drink will be held Feb. 7 in Craig's New Castle Magisterial District.
While Greenway sees a benefit from liquor by the drink, ministers of churches in New Castle are not so sure. They have bound together in an effort to keep hard liquor out of the county.
And at least one government representative in New Castle is opposed to the mixed-drink proposal.
Julian Zimmerman, vice mayor of New Castle, said he is opposed to mixed drinks in Craig and will try to get Town Council to adopt a resolution in opposition.
"I will bring it up myself," Zimmerman said. "This liquor by the drink is something we should not have."
Beer and wine are available at some restaurants for consumption on premises and some stores have off-premises licenses.
Churches generally have opposed those beverages, also.
Greenway, the originator of the liquor-by-the-drink movement, said the county sorely needs tax revenue and with all the taxes on liquor he believes some of that revenue would go to the county treasury.
Also, Greenway said, Craig County residents drink hard liquor now. But they must go outside the county to get it.
"People drive to Salem or Roanoke or someplace else to buy a bottle of whiskey and start drinking it on the way home," he said. "Some of them have been charged with drunken driving for doing that."
Others go to restaurants outside the county and get mixed drinks with meals, Greenway said, adding they sometimes consume more than they really wanted because they knew it would not be available back home in Craig.
He believes those two actions would be lessened if mixed drinks were available in the county.
Also, Greenway said that when people go to neighboring communities to drink they are taking Craig money outside the county.
"I can't see any good in dropping all that money in Roanoke and Salem," he said.
Greenway said opponents of liquor by the drink apparently do not look at the economic advantages but only see liquor as evil.
"The sin is not in the alcoholic beverage," he said. "It is in the way it is used. Food can become sinful if it is misused."
Ministers in New Castle are unified in their opposition to liquor by the drink. The most outspoken is Doug Powers, minister of the Church of God of Prophecy which is within sight of Greenway's restaurant on Virginia 311, just outside the New Castle town limits.
There is a sign on the parking lot of this church urging everyone to vote against liquor by the drink.
Powers said he is not in favor of alcoholic beverages in any form and that his church teaches abstinence.
"When we see all the woes of alcohol, we feel we must take a stand against it."
Steve Putney, pastor of First Baptist Church in New Castle, said he has urged people in his church to vote "no" in the referendum.
"I am very displeased that this is coming up," he said.
Putney, official spokesman for the New Castle Ministerial Association, which is composed of the six churches in the New Castle area, said he's
"satisfied that people in the churches are against this and I believe the community as a whole is against it."
David Breeden, minister of New Castle United Methodist Church, called the effort to legalize liquor by the drink a "blight on Craig County, the town of New Castle especially."
Of the four restaurants in the New Castle Magisterial District, only two offer beer and wine, Brizs and the Busy Bee. The other two - the Bread Basket and New Castle Hot Dog Stand - do not offer alcoholic beverages.
Greenway said that according to information he has gotten from the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, his restaurant is the only one in the New Castle district offering beer and wine that could meet the ABC board's required food/liquor ratio.
ABC regulations require that a restaurant with a mixed-drink license have at least 45 percent of its gross receipts in food sales.
Even though Greenway originated the mixed-drink movement in Craig, he was not the person who filed the referendum request with Craig County Circuit Court. That was done by Garnett Benevides, a registered voter in the New Castle District and a cook at Brizs.
State law requires that anyone asking for a referendum be a registered voter in the district where the vote is to be held. Greenway lives in Salem.
Benevides also circulated the required petitions asking for a referendum.
Even though her part in the movement was to meet a technical requirement, Benevides said she favors liquor by the drink.
"Drinking it would be voluntary," she said. "Nobody would be forced to drink it."
Several people raised the question of whether the petition had been filed soon enough to make a referendum legal.
But Peggy Elmore, clerk of Craig County Circuit Court, said state law requires that official public notice be given at least three weeks before the referendum. That means the official notice would not be required before Jan. 17.
The Feb. 7 referendum won't be in the entire county. It will be held only in the New Castle Magisterial District, which includes the town of New Castle, the county's center of government and business.
Having the referendum in only one magisterial district is a sore point with at least one person.
A government employee who asked not to be quoted by name said the referendum is a countywide issue and should be held throughout the county. The employee said that if liquor by the drink is adopted in the New Castle district, it would have an effect on people living in the other two districts -Alleghany and Simmonsville.
"All of the people should have a chance to vote on it," this employee said.
The referendum is not being held in the Alleghany and Simmonsville districts because no restaurants in those districts have sought to get the issue legalized.
Greenway said he thinks Craig is one of the few counties in Virginia without liquor by the drink.
Robert Chapman, public relations coordinator for the ABC Board in Richmond, said 32 counties in Virginia do not have mixed drinks.
by CNB