Newspapers / The News-Journal (Raeford, N.C.) / March 28, 1985, edition 1 / Page 16
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4BC sysflp celebrates 50th anniversary By Nod Yanccy ? My three elderly ntata hated li quor like the Devfl haled holy water. So yon can imaginr my sur prise when they enaoanrrd their iatention to vote for ABC liquor stores. "People are not foiag to stop dHakb^." they explained, "and we think the county should get all that money instead of the bootlegger." After a half century of ABC li quor stores, the figures prove my aunts knew whereof they spoke. In those 30 years, the state has col lected $870 million in taxes on ABC liquor sales while counties and municipalities earned $699.25 million in profits that went to help finance local government, the public schools, hospitals, libraries - a total of $1.33 billion. In addition, liquor sales paid $47.8 million to state and counties for rehabilitation of alcoholics; $84.7 million to counties and municipalities for law enforcement and education while another $463 million from liquor sales paid the salaries of 1,400 employees of 46 county and 100 municipal boards which operate the 384 ABC liquor stores in North Carolina. The ABC liquor system got its start when the 1933 General Assembly passed laws authorizing elections in 18 counties on legaliz ing liquor stores. All of those counties but two voted for the stores. Wilson County, which had ap proved stores almost 10 to 1 - 4,147 to 428 - opened the state's first ABC store on July 2, 1935. The other 13 counties soon follow ed. In the half century since, addi tional counties have voted in stores until there are now a total of 46. Asheville - where an election was authorized under a special legislative art after Buncombe County had voted dry - became the first municipality to operate an ABC system in 1947. Now there are 100 municipal ABC systems. As a result, there are now ABC li quor stores in every North Carolina county except eight - Graham, Clay, Mitchell, Yancey, Davie, Yadkin, McDowell and Ashe. The battle in the 1933 Legislature came 26 years after North Carolina became the first state to completely outlaw liquor sales,* 13 years after prohibition became effective nationally and only two years after the people of the state had voted 3Q0,QS4 to 1 15.312 against repeal of die 18th on Nww sber 7, 1933 in its fight - * - - - 1 -f gfc % i|iinn toe repeal 01 tTOfiiDiuoD, dry fow have fought a generally uanccessfhl holding action, a long - ? * m ^ a* ? a ? * m m m mm m m m m .1 tenet ok otfetu interspersed wttn 14, 1978 whea^the Oeneral *i iwmMj ratified a statewide local option liquor -by-the-drink hill. It was the greatest victory scored by control supporters since 1935. After 30 years of ABC stores, even Coy Privette, the KannapoMs minister who heads the Christian Action League, had some kind words to say for the ABC system although he remains adamantly opposed to liquor by the drink. Privette said he had "always been a supporter of the ABC system" and considers it "far superior" to the licensing system such as South Carolina's where "every Tom, Dick and Harry can go into the li quor business." He said the ABC control states "have less per capita consumption" than the private states. State ABC Chairman Charlie Knox - appointed to the post recently by Governor Jim Martin - said "our people can be proud of the ABC system" which "has serv ed the people well over the last SO years." He said tbe system "has been run with integrity" by a lot of local people on 146 county and municipal board which have pro duced "substantial revenues for the state and the local units." Passage of the liquor -by-the drink measure in June, 1978, hing ed on the decision of House Speaker Carl Stewart to recognize Rep. H. Parks Helms, a Charlotte Democrat who led tbe liquor -by the-drink forces, instead of Rep. Dan Lilley of Kinston, the anti liquor floor leader. The mixed drink bill had just been defeated by a 61-65 vote. Lilley wanted to make the motion to apply the legislative "clincher" which would have effectively killed the bill. Helms knew what Lilley was up to and wanted to seek an adjourn ment before Lilley torpedoed his cause. When Stewart, who was official ly neutral but privately favored the mh ? Hrtlwi i Itoi il journmenf DotuTaSBot^ friends and foes spent a hectic evening trying to convert a handful of House ? b?i who were wavering. The mixed drink forces succeeded io (Indtai t couple of members who were willing to ??take a walk" from the Hook chamber white the vote was being taken. They did walk. The House voted 57-56 to resurrect the bill, and it was passed 62-35 on Its final reading on June 9. Dr. D.P. McFariand, director of the Christian Action League . an anti-liquor leader* said ? that Stewart's recognition of Heftms instead of LiQey was the turning point in the mixed drink battle. The liquor issue has produced many other dramatic moments in the Legislature. Some of these came in 1935 when the first ABC liquor bill was passed. The days were chagrined when Senator Spnmt Hill of Durham, hitherto a staunch backer of prohibition, an nounced that he and several other drys were backing a bill calling for a referendum on opening state operated liquor stores. Hill, a stately, white-thatched patrician, said his group felt "conditions in North Carolina have become in tolerable in regard to the sate and use of liquor." He said the Turl ington Act has become "more a breeder of crime than law for the enforcement of prohibition." The courts have contributed dram tic moments, too. One of these came in 1966 in a case challenging the City of Reidsville's ABC liquor system on the ground there was no provision for municipal ABC stores in the General Statutes. However, the State Supreme Court ruled that the will of the people had been ex pressed in an ABC election and that municipal ABC systems are legal. A howl of anguish and dismay erupted in 1966 when the Supreme Court outlawed brown-bagging ? the Tar Heel practice or carrying li qour bottles into restaurants and clubs to pour drinks. Associate Justice Susie Sharp wrote the opi nion in which the court held that drinking liquor was legal only in one's home. The ruling - had it been enforced would have halted brown-bagging in restaurants and would have closed the bar in every bottle. club, country club and When Judge Hugh Campbell of Charlotte ruled that the court's decree would not be enforced until ? new Ural of court convened in Mackhnbiarg on January 3 - three weeks away, the Supreme Court stenty rebuked Judge CampbHl 'by ordering enforcement to begin "forthwith" - meaning right now. It made sure Judge Campbell got the awasage by having its marshal personally cany it to Charlotte - mi m mynsoffd'ff'tf ftd step* TTic had sought to let MackHnburg tip plers brown-bag in peace during the holiday Season. The General Assembly heeded the snguishrd cries the following year by legalizing brown-bagging. It conferred on the State . ABC Board the task of licensing and regulating restaurants and dubs that. wished to allow patrons to drink from their own bottles. In 1977, the board issued 3,542 brown-bag permits. The brown-bag crisis had the ef fect of strengthening the push by the tourist industry ? restaurants, hotels, motels, and chambers of commerce in resort areas and con vention dttes - and by the bottle dubs, country dubs and veterans' posts - for legislation to legalize mixed drinks. This drive was inten sified in 1972 when the Supreme Court ruled uncoostituional a local law which had authorized a mixed drink referndum in Mecklenburg County. The court hdd tch law discrimintated against dtizens of other counties who were not given the oppotunity to vote on mixed drinks. After passage of the statewide mixed drink measure, voters in Mecklenburg County quickly opted against the liquor by the drink - by a two to one margin. A few weeks later, a customer in Benedictine's Restaurant downed a Bloody Mary. It was the first legal cocktail poured by a bartender in North Carolina in 70 years. Now mixed drinks are legal in 1,200 restaurants and dubs in eight counties and 37 additional a ties or towns. Each of these 1,200 outlets pays an extra $13 for each gallon of liquor it buys. The local unit gets $9 of this and the state $6. From July 1, 1983 to June 30, 1984, liquor sales in North Carolina totaled $300,890,506. Mixed drinks accounted for $26,712,659 of this. { tUfUUkii PMiWMH! decline in bottlfmles of liquor and - an increase in mixed drink sales. "We're making more money. and the public is consuming less li quor" said Knox. "I think that's the way it should be." But Privette said the ills resulting from mixed drinks were greater than he had expected. He said mixed drink sales were up by 12 percent in the nation last year, and "when you have increased consumption, you have an increase in related problems" of alcohol consumption, you have an increase in related problems" of alcohol consumption. He said DUI arrests in mixed drinks counties had risen 67 percent in the first four years. However, J. Richard Stewart, a researcher at North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center in Chapel Hill said a study a little over a year ago indicated "no ma jor changes" in alcohol-related auto accidents since the^dvent of mixed drinks. During the first year of so after ABC stores wree opened in 16 ocunties, they were operated by the individual county ABC boards completely independent of state direction. These boards hired per sonnel, established stores, selected brands, set prices and disbursed profits. However, the 1937 Legislature created the State ABC Board (now the ABC Commission) and authorized ABC elections in every county as recommended by a study commission headed by Vic tor Bryant of Durham. Governor Clyde R. Hoey ap pointed Cutlar Moore of Lumber ton, who had been active in the Hoey gubernatorial campaign, to head the new board. The other members were F. Webb Williams of Elizabeth City and Thomas J. Murphy of Greensboro. Williams, who had sponsored the Pas quotank Act under which all the 1935 ABC elections save one were held, was the "wet" on the board, Murphy was the "dry," and Moore, who admitted to drinking an occasional beer, was "Mr. In Between." Though considered a middle-of-the-roader on liquor, Moore said he voted dry in 1933, and "If I had to vote again, I believe I would vote dry." The board's first task was to set uniform liquor prices for the entiie state. Its other duties under the law were to see that the state's , beverage ?*???"? en "^^ar3*anddirccting the operation of the bonded warehouse where li quor was held until it was ordered by the local boards. Although the board is now called a comiwitrion and its membership has been in creased to five and reduced again to three, its powers and duties re main much the same today except it was given the task of regulating wine sales in 1943 end beer sales in 1949. The board's membership which was upped to five as part of a reorganization of state govern ment, was reduced to three again in 1969 at the behest of Oovernor Bob Scott. The 1969 legislation had the effect of tossing out the five-member board and replacing it with a three-member panel ap pointed by the governor and serv ing at his pleasure. That's the way the law remains today. The local ABC boards are autonomous, quasi -governmental panels of civic-minded citizens who serve their communities with little financial reward. These boards have the task of operating local ABC systems in accordance with state law. They have to bor row the funds to get started, build or rent store buildings, hire employees, purchase merchandise as well as equipment and supplies and distribute profits. Neither the state or local governments have in- < vested one cent in their operations. North Carolina is one of 18 li quor states, but it differs from the others in one important respect. In other states, where the government sells liquor to the public in publicly -owned stores, the state ac tually purchases the liquor from the distillers. But not in North Carolina. It has a bailment system under which distillers ship their ' product to a privately-operated, state-owned central warehouse in Raleigh where it is held in the distiller's name until it is purchas ed by a local board. Since the passage of the mixed drink bill in 1978, the biennial hurly-burly over alcoholic beverages in the General Assembly has largely subsided for the first time since 1935. One can't help but < reflect on some of the changes the half century have brought. Back in 193S, folks in Raleigh had to drive to South Hill, Virginia, to buy li quor legally. Then when Nash County opened stores,- they had drive t? nearby Middlesex. Finally, they had to go only a few blocks when Wake County opted for stores. EX-LAX PILLS 30's ^ Tx-lax, VM reg. 2.87 BONUS BUY i" 114 N. MAIN STREET RAEFORD, N.C. 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The News-Journal (Raeford, N.C.)
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March 28, 1985, edition 1
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