Proposition 1, a controversial ballot initiative that, if passed, would open all of Dallas to retail beer and wine sales, couldn’t help laying bare some of the fault lines that have long defined political life in the city ‒ wet vs.
dry, suburban vs. urban, Black vs. White, religious temperance vs. a secular commitment to the bottom line.
Both sides of the fight draw their ranks from concerned members of the community as well as more self-interested elements. Some city council members, such as Steve Salazar, worry that opening the dry areas of their districts to alcohol sales will lead them to resemble those portions that are already wet, complete with beer barns, higher crime, prostitution and blight. Others question the motives of those sponsoring the move, which include major retailers such as Costco and Kroger.
An organization called Keep the Dollars in Dallas is spearheading the initiative. According to its spokesman, Gary Huddleston, Dallas is losing sales tax revenue to the suburbs where buying alcohol is a less complicated ‒ and confusing ‒ undertaking. With its patchwork of wet and dry boundaries that overlay neighborhoods, people have to cross arbitrary boundaries in order to make purchases.
“There’s two reasons for voters to vote ‘yes’ on the wet/dry issue,” Huddleston said. “The first would be exactly what our title is, to ‘Keep the Dollars in Dallas,’ ‒ to keep the tax dollars within the city of Dallas. The city’s economic development committee did a study that said it would be an additional $10 million to $11 million in sales tax revenue to the city. And secondly, it’s customer convenience.”
Huddleston continued, “Today the city of Dallas is a patchwork of wet areas and dry areas, and as a matter of fact Kroger has four dry stores within the city of Dallas, out of seven total stores. So it is confusing for the customer to go in one Kroger (sic) store and find beer and wine, but [not in another].”
Willie Mae Coleman, longtime community activist and president of the Bertrand Neighborhood Association, agrees.
“I think that the alcohol [should be] shared all over the city, ‘cause we don’t get no benefit from being the only part of the city that’s wet,” said Coleman. “You know, with the revenue and the taxes from the liquor stores that are out here, we don’t get any benefit from that. So sell it all over town, let everybody have a liquor store in their community, so we don’t have the only liquor stores, because it don’t make us any fatter, and it don’t make nothing better (sic) in South Dallas.”
Coleman feels that the proliferation of alcohol-selling businesses throughout the city, a possibility some view with dread, would actually have a positive leveling effect, forcing the wealthier parts of the city to grapple with issues that her neighborhood has long had to confront. She also predicts that most in her neighborhood association will be voting “yes” right along with her.
“Let them have a beer barn,” Coleman said. “They don’t have beer barns in the other parts of town, all the beer barns are out here. Let them see what we go through.”
On the other side of the issue is local attorney Andy Siegel, who represents an unlikely coalition of faith-based community leaders and liquor merchants who stand to lose if beer and wine sales are allowed citywide. Along with attempting to persuade voters that an uncontrolled flood of new alcohol-selling businesses would be detrimental to the city, Siegel has also indicated that he will challenge the legality of the election should the vote pass.
“The last thing we need is an uncontrolled flood of beer, wine and malt liquor on every corner, in every neighborhood,” Siegel said. “And it kind of breaks down to a battle between the North and the South.”
Siegel argues that the North Dallas-based interests that are the prime movers behind the election could, if they chose, vote to go wet at the justice of the peace precinct level rather than impose a new status quo citywide.
“If North Dallas wants for whatever reason, however misguided, to let alcohol be everywhere in all of their neighborhoods, that’s their business, they can do it in their part of town. But they shouldn’t be allowed, by going to a citywide election, to impose on Oak Cliff [or the Southern sector] that doesn’t want liquor everywhere,” Siegel said.
Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway also sees the issue in terms of north vs. south. Instead of the sparkling new retail stores that wet advocates emphasize, he worries that the southern sector will become even more captive to convenience stores than it is already.
In a riposte to Gary Huddleston at a recent panel discussion Caraway asked: “Would you bring a beautiful Kroger store to the Southern Sector? We don’t have anything but convenience stores. What about the big trucks that deliver beer and wine? They will have to drive through our neighborhoods. Why are you rushing when the community has not put the necessary protective plan in place? You are putting the entire community at risk.”
Siegel alleges irregularities in the signature-gathering conducted by Keep the Dollars in Dallas that would give a judge cause to void the election. He also said that many in South Dallas are concerned that the citywide measure would jeopardize the work they’ve done to clean up blighted areas.
No one can truly predict how beer and wine sales will spread if the initiative passes, however. What is certain is that should it pass, the city will have no legal options under state law for restricting sales by a store’s size, type or location, which means that small mom-and-pop stores ‒ like the many that dot southern Dallas ‒ will have the same right to sell beer and wine as Costco or Wal-Mart.
Rev. Dr. Jerry L. Christian of Kirkwood Temple C.M.E. Church can’t help worrying. “There’s no guarantee that South Dallas will benefit. Mainly North Dallas will benefit. We are going to be left with small convenience stores. Why not give us enough time to see what the benefit will be?”
But Huddleston insists that fears about the spread of crime and blight to already-marginal areas are unfounded.
“I can point to other cities that have passed wet ordinances within the last several years, one being the city of Irving,” Huddleston said. “Residents had some of those same concerns and certainly it hasn’t come to fruition; in fact, crime is down in Irving and there has even been some redevelopment. I understand those concerns, and it is certainly not our intent to have any more crime, but the statistics bear out that that does not occur.”
© Dallas Examiner. All rights reserved.
© Dallas Examiner. All rights reserved.
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