Pro - Sunday alcohol won’t send morals into tailspin
There’s no doubt that Sunday has that undeniable Sunday feeeel. Everything is a little bit slower. Stores close early (thankfully forcing people to fill their time with non-shopping related activities). Many families spend the morning at church before heading out to eat, but here in Jasper adults aren't able to buy alcohol with their meal. Not even a little Irish crème for their coffee.
If the city council makes the correct decision and puts pouring rights on the ballot in November, residents of Jasper will be given the opportunity to overturn a blue law that is severely outdated and borders on insulting for of-age drinkers.
Many in the anti-alcohol-on-Sunday crowd see the availability of beer, wine, and spirits as a gateway drug of sorts. If we let in the alcohol, we may as well say goodbye to tradition, morality, and those wholesome outings with our children as we watch them float down a river of margaritas and cheap beer.
But look at Canton. Look at Ellijay. These neighboring cities allow their licensed restaurants to pour on Sunday, and there hasn't been any rioting in the streets. Drunkards aren’t wandering around taunting children or asking passersby for money. People still attend church, and families (if crowded parks are any indicator) still spend time together.
Let’s be sensible about this, and let’s give ourselves a little more credit than the hard-shell traditionalists do. Alcohol being served at restaurants isn’t going to change much about the social climate on Sundays, and it certainly isn't going to throw our collective moral compass into a tailspin.
It's our traditions and personal schedules that influence the way we drink, not the other way around. The majority of people still have to get up early Monday morning, and the majority of people don't like starting the work week hung-over.
Our government is treating us like children when they imply we would have no self-control without their help and, moreover, when they imply that our alcohol consumption is based solely on its availability, they put us on par with horses, who don't have the sense to stop eating when pastures are bountiful. True, if veto-happy Sonny Perdue has his way, Sunday package sales in stores may be a long way off. But some leaders like Mayor Weaver and the city council (if, that is, they give pouring rights the go ahead) are forward thinking enough to let the democratic process run its course and allow the people to decide what they want for themselves.
Our morals, traditions and customs can't be expected to remain the same generation after generation. It's fairly obvious these things change gradually, and we have to adjust our laws to reflect our development as a society.
Con - Small town atmosphere trumps Sunday alcohol
In Mayberry, when it was time for Sunday dinner, Aunt Bea did the cooking.
When Barney went to court the girls, he didn’t do it on Sunday with a dry martini in his hand. “Shaken, not stirred,” was not in the boy’s Sunday vocabulary.
Otis, the town drunk, most assuredly could not buy booze on a Sunday at any store. And, one hopes, even the bootleggers in Mayberry didn’t sell on the Sabbath.
And life was good.
The Jasper City Council is being asked to consider a resolution giving people here the chance to vote a referendum on Sunday alcohol sales in Jasper restaurants.
Let’s encourage our council members to think more like Mayberry than Canton.
The reason cited for allowing Sunday alcohol sales is to lure chain-type eating establishments here––as if Longhorns, Hooters and Ruby Tuesdays are signs of arriving civilization and a surefire way to jumpstart our economy.
It is believed chain-operated restaurants avoid counties with no Sunday alcohol sales and that Sunday diners drive out-of-county to have a few beers with their burgers.
But it’s hard to believe any large number of Pickens Countians hit the road just for a Sunday drink. And we might do well to consider how many of those same Sunday diners would be comfortable ordering that gin and tonic sitting among Jasper’s after-church crowd in a local restaurant.
More than likely, folks choosing to leave the county for Sunday lunch do so for a variety of reasons: shopping, movies, the chance to get out.
Note too that Ably Asian and other locally owned restaurants are already open on Sundays. Bringing in new chain restaurants would simply dilute hungry mouths to more establishments, not create any bigger market.
The primary tangible benefit we would see from new chain restaurants and Sunday alcohol sales would be increased local tax revenue. Suddenly there would be taxes collected on Sunday drinks where that just had never happened before.
But jobs to be created by a new influx of eateries are really the kind already available here. Except for a few manager positions, those jobs wouldn’t counter ones lost in the real estate slowdown. Other possible benefits from more restaurants here should be compared against revenue losses for existing eateries. Many here now are family owned.
Finally, in a recent Looking Back from the 1940’s-1950’s, the Progress reprinted an earlier story about the grand jury asking the sheriff to visit any local store open on Sunday and see if they would shut down to promote a more peaceful day for families. There’s a resolution we’d like to see the council consider.
Call it the Small Town Atmosphere Protection Act. |
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