BENTON COUNTY — Liquor licenses will be a hot commodity if voters approve a November measure to let the state’s second-largest county go “wet,” said Michael Langley, director of the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Division.

City councils and other officials will have little say on where liquor stores go but can make a big impact with the state on who gets a license, Langley said.

Proponents started their campaign - Keep Dollars in Benton County - to get retail alcohol sales on the ballot five months ago. The group is a ballot question committee, a type of group organized under state law to support ballot initiatives.

The Alcoholic Beverage Control Division will begin accepting applications for permits 30 days after a successful election is certified if there is no challenge to the outcome. The first liquor stores could be approved in late spring if the measure passes, Langley said.

The most obvious change for residents would be the availability of alcohol in liquor and convenience stores. Liquor stores would be limited to one store per 4,000 residents as counted by the 2010 Census - or 55 permits in the county. The stores cannot be within 1,000 feet of churches or schools, according to state law.

Aspiring store owners would go through the division’s application system, which uses a lottery for a chance at a permit. Division staff would draw numbers to assign each potential owner a spot to appear before the board to apply. Once the 55 permits are issued, any remaining applicants would be out of luck, Langley said. That’s not to say the first 55 applicants would receive the permits, only that they would have their day before the board. Only one permit per owner is allowed.

No state law prevents all the stores in one county from going to one town, but that’s unlikely with the lottery system, Langley said. However, once all the permits are issued, the board will consider the one per 4,000 residents requirement for each city when liquor stores attempt to move or seek a new permit.

“The law only protects movement, not the initial issue,” Langley said.

Potential liquor store owners and their properties face scrutiny from a five-member board appointed by the governor. Owners must be felonyfree Arkansas residents of “good moral character” who aren’t delinquent on state taxes, among other stipulations in the law.

Comments from the community make a difference, Langley said. All written comments on an application must go to the Alcohol Beverage Control Division in Little Rock. No email, faxes or petitions are considered, Langley said.

“If you’re truly against it, if you have an absolute objection, you arebest served to show up in front of the board and tell them,” Langley said. “It’s especially effective if you’re with a school district, the mayor or the chief of police.”

A recent example of this was the July board meeting where a restaurant mixed-drink permit for Mary Maestri’s Italian Grillroom in Springdale was denied after the police chief objected.

Several candidates for Bentonville City Council have said they want zoning laws to further restrict liquor store locations if the county goes wet. The Alcohol Beverage Control Division has final say on store approval and location, and cities aren’t allowed to create zoning against liquor stores, Langley said.

Troy Galloway, director of community development for Bentonville, said the city’s Planning Department is researching options.

“We don’t want to make any assumptions about the outcome of the vote, but we’re looking forward,” Galloway said. “We're looking to see if there’s anything we can do as a municipality to further regulate liquor stores.”

A state law passed in February 2011 banning franchising or branding of liquor stores in the state could affect potential retailers. The law passed after Roger Gildehaus, Bentonville resident and Macadoodles owner, made plans to open stores in Fayetteville, Fort Smith and Little Rock in addition to his store in Springdale. The measure was designed to strengthen a state lawprohibiting any person or entity from owning more than one liquor store.

The law exempts the Springdale Liquor Association, which operates seven stores in Springdale, and companies in Little Rock and Texarkana. The three entities were grandfathered in but will not be allowed to expand.

If Gildehaus wanted to open a store in his home county, he would have to close his Springdale store, Langley said.

“That’s where it gets hinky though,” Langley said. “A wife could own one, and her husband could own one.”

The 55 permits for liquor stores wouldn’t include retail establishments such as gasoline stations or grocery stores that sell packaged beer and wine. There is no limit to the number of permits available for stores that don’t sell distilled liquor, though they do go through the state’s permitting process.

The 133 private clubs in Benton County would face few changes in a wet county, at least in the beginning. Private clubs could keep their permits. The biggest immediate change would be no longer having to drive to Washington County to purchase alcohol from retailers to resell, according to Marshall Ney, spokesman for Keep Dollars in Benton County.

“It’s not a whole lot of money in savings as far as we’re concerned,” said Joe Lisuzzo, owner of Copeland’s of New Orleans Restaurant in Rogers. “We have a 1-ton van to bring our own deliveries, andwe’d change to somebody who’d deliver for us. It would save us money on paying somebody to drive the van and on insurance. It’d be about $200 a month, but I’m sure we’ll have to pay for somebody to deliver for us. It’s not a huge difference.”

One big difference is he’ll pay sales taxes in Benton County and not elsewhere, Lisuzzo said: “I’ve said for years that we’d probably have had enough money to build the Bella Vista bypass 10 times over if we got to keep all the money in taxes on the liquor served in this county.”

Letting by-the-drink servers of alcohol buy liquor wholesale would require another election. Under state law, it is illegal to transport alcohol across state lines for retail purposes or for clubs in dry counties to purchase alcohol at wholesale prices. Groups such as the Springdale Liquor Association have benefited from these stipulations, as Benton County businesses took the shortest route and paid full retail prices for alcohol to serve their patrons.

The Springdale Liquor Association advertises on its website it is the “largestwholesaler to private clubs and restaurants.” A woman who answered the phone for the association said they have no comment on the Benton County issue.

If Benton County becomes wet, those same clubs can purchase alcohol from local retailers, costing Washington County businesses and creating a new tax base in Benton County. However, private clubs are still not allowed to purchase alcohol from a wholesaler.

If the November vote passes, Benton County will join 35 other wet counties in the state.

Once a county is wet, residents have the option after two years to create dry pockets within the county. Many wet counties in the state have multiple towns or townships that don’t allow alcohol sales. In Washington County, Prairie Grove and Farmington are dry.

After the two-year waiting period, groups can attempt to meet the 38 percent signature threshold to place a dry vote on the ballot in their communities. If an area goes dry, all permit outlets in the area would be required to surrender their permits and close up within 90 days, Langley said.

News, Pages 12 on 08/08/2012