Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 4, 1995 TAG: 9502060023
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Thomas G. Baker Jr.
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
HB 1659 was defeated on the floor Wednesday by a 49 to 50 vote. This measure would have allowed restaurants serving alcohol to lower the ration of food they needed to serve, as compared to the percentage of alcohol, to 35 percent. I voted against the bill as I feel it is bad public policy to say it is OK for 65 percent of your sales to be of alcoholic beverages and because of my fear of increased drinking and driving. The House did reconsider the measure on Thursday under a parliamentary rule and the bill passed by a vote of 56 to 40. I again voted against the measure.
Grocery and convenience stores may sell beer and wine but not distilled spirits or, in other words, liquor. HB 1843 proposed to allow the sale of products such as "Lynchburg Limeade" in grocery and convenience stores. This is a distilled spirit beverage sold only in liquor stores. The bill passed by a vote of 74-23. I opposed this measure as it will now be possible to buy liquor in the grocery store and, thus, for all intents and purposes we now have a quasi liquor by the drink law statewide.
The Senate approved my HB 987 last week. This legislation will save tax dollars by eliminating publication and distribution of thousands of expensive annual reports of various state agencies that had heretofore been done on a voluntary basis. Also, many of you have inquired as to my position on Del. Frank Ruff's HB 1712. I am a co-patron on this bill and support it as well as Sen. Virgil Goode's companion Senate bill.
The budget remains the key focus of attention. The Finance Committees were to act on the governor's tax cut proposals by Thursday. After all of the debate has been made, pro and con, it seems that now may not be the time to make such dramatic adjustments to state taxing and spending. Normally, such is done when the governor presents his own two-year budget rather than in the odd-numbered year session. Philosophically, I remain in favor of reduced personal income taxes. However, I also remain committed to providing the maximum amount of funding possible for school children and higher education. Under Allen's proposals, overall spending would increase, but the net to public schools in our district would decline. The cuts made at Virginia Tech and Radford University may not be able to be restored. This, I believe, would not do justice to our school children and could harm the economy of our area because of the large number of employees at Tech and Radford. We could also see reductions to programs helping children such as Community Action and Head Start. Weighing the pros and cons, I have to believe that the better course of action is to possibly take a look at the tax cuts next year and keep our commitments to education and children.
As always, I can be reached at (804) 786-6605 and by mail at Room 446, General Assembly Building, Capitol Square, P.O. Box 406, Richmond Va., 23203, or through the Dublin office at 674-4081 and P.O. Box 1847, Dublin, Va., 24084.
Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1995
by CNB