Viewpoints Vary On Effects Of Legalized Alcohol Sales

As Precinct 1 voters prepare to go to the polls Tuesday for a local option election, the debate continues as to what effect, if any, legalized alcohol sales could have on local law enforcement departments and crime rates.

Local officials often take a neutral stance when it comes to local option elections, but Van Zandt County Sheriff Pat Burnett is going against the grain, speaking out against alcohol sales in the precinct.

More specifically, Burnett, a former police officer in Terrell, does not want to see the possibility of full liquor stores in Van Zandt County.

"I am not against people who want to have a drink," he said. "But if you look at our (county) jail population, somewhere between 80 to 90 percent are there for things where drugs and alcohol were related.

"As far as beer and wine sales, if that is what the community wants, I don’t have a problem with that. But we don’t need the liquor stores," Burnett said.

He continued by saying he feels liquor stores are more of a magnet for armed robberies, based on his past experiences working in law enforcement in Terrell.

"I worked a lot of robberies…(liquor stores) cash checks, and they always have money. I think it would lead to a crime increase for our community because right now those businesses don’t exist. I realize the gas stations that could sell beer, they already exist here and, yeah, they can be robbed, too," Burnett said.

On the issue of law enforcement manpower, Burnett said the fact that Tuesday’s election is for all of Precinct 1 and not in an individual city poses another potential problem.

"If it (alcohol sales) goes countywide, then it includes places like Fruitvale, which doesn’t have a police department. Then you are getting into (county) taxpayers’ pocketbooks," he said. "If sales are legalized precinct-wide, you have the potential for problems in all these unincorporated areas.

"We (sheriff’s office) don’t have enough manpower already, and I think this would only add problems to it," Burnett added.

The issue of local alcohol sales always brings up the issue of road crimes such as driving while intoxicated, driving under the influence or vehicular fatalities where alcohol is a factor in the crash. Opponents to legalized sales often cite a belief that such incidents will increase.

But there is another side to the argument, one that might be termed "the distance temptation."

As Grand Saline Police Department Investigator Leslie Lehmann explained, "If people are going to drive to another town or county to buy alcoholic beverages, and it is far away, it can increase the chance they may want to pop a top on the way home. Before you know it, you’ve got a drunk driver on the road.

"On the other hand, if a person is only going five or six blocks from their house to buy some beer, that person is going to wait until they get home to drink it," she added.

A recent study by the Texas Department of Public Safety and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration would seem to back the idea that keeping alcohol sales far away from places like Edgewood, Grand Saline and Canton does not lead to a safer Van Zandt County.

Based on 2007 data, the study showed that dry counties actually had a higher rate of DWI arrests and alcohol-related traffic fatalities than wet counties. According to the study, the number of arrests for driving while intoxicated in Texas was 502 per 100,000 residents in dry counties versus 445 in wet counties.

The difference in the number of traffic deaths involving alcohol was even more dramatic. In dry counties, the rate was 5.7 deaths per 100,000 residents, more than twice the 2.7 rate in wet areas.

Lehmann said the real issue of safety usually comes down to personal responsibility, not the location where the beverage was bought.

"I just do not see it making an enormous difference. People who are going to be stupid enough to drink and drive are going to do it if we are selling it here or not," she said.

As for the argument that any sales tax revenue would be consumed by the need to hire more police officers, Lehmann replied, "It’s usually not a matter of having to hire more officers, but that cities would like to add more officers and the extra revenue allows them to do so."

Until recently, people in Grand Saline who wanted to purchase alcoholic beverages had to drive long distances to either Terrell (34 miles) or Big Sandy (37 miles). It has become a shorter run for beer or wine since the cities of Wills Point and Emory approved sales in May.

Regardless, proponents of local alcoholic beverage sales say they are sick of seeing local dollars fly out of town on a regular basis.

Grand Saline businessman Jimmy Pickens, who led the petition drive to get three alcohol sales options on Tuesday’s ballot in Precinct 1, argues that when people go out of town or out of the county to buy alcoholic beverages, they rarely if ever buy only the alcoholic beverages.

"If voters approve these measures, I believe we will not just make tax dollars on the alcohol sales, but on sales of other things they will buy when they are in this town," he said. "If nothing else, we can keep our own residents in town and keep that revenue.

"If we do go wet in Precinct 1, we’re guaranteed to keep the majority of people around here buying local. If people who want to buy alcohol are given a choice, the big majority of them will buy it right here," Pickens added.

As for potential problems, Pickens points out that legalized alcoholic beverage sales would present one problem some people may be forgetting and that a few shady characters would rather not see.

"You want to know who is going to get hurt by Precinct 1 going wet? You need to be talking to the bootleggers, that’s who," Pickens said.

Lehmann said she believes legalized sales "will cut some of the business out for the bootleggers."

However, she added that the primary customers for bootleggers — underage drinkers — will still be present. "Kids who want to drink are still going to have somebody to go get alcohol from, whether we are wet or dry," Lehmann said.

Burnett agreed, but said he does not see bootlegging as being a major problem now.

"We busted one recently in Van, and there is always going to be somebody who is going to sell it, just like drugs or black market tobacco," he said. "If we have stores selling it, maybe it won’t be as bad, but I don’t think it’s bad now…they (bootleggers) will maybe start to operate after (store) hours."

Underage drinking is a problem communities large and small face on a continual basis, and something school officials often find themselves joining in the battle.

Fruitvale ISD Superintendent Bill Boyd said youths should not be underestimated.

"Kids will find a way…they may not look fully grown, but they are sharp," he said.

Boyd added that urban areas, most of which have some form of legalized alcohol sales, do not have the market cornered on underage drinking problems.

"I think sometimes in rural areas it can be worse, because sometimes kids will say, ‘We don’t have anything to do.’ It is definitely not an urban-area thing and can sometimes be more prevalent in rural areas," he said.

"If kids really want to find alcohol, they are going to find a way to get it. Having it sold locally might make it a little more accessible…anytime there is more accessibility to alcohol, you have to consider not just the kids but adults, but I don’t think that just because it becomes available locally that is going to increase the number of adults drinking," Boyd added.

The consequences of underage drinking will continue to be addressed by educators, he said, regardless of what happens at the polls Tuesday.

"It’s a huge concern of mine, that is for certain," Boyd said. "Every health class I ever taught, I always remembered and told my students this one statistic from a friend of mine who was a justice of the peace in Burnet County, that every traffic death involving a juvenile he ever worked, there was only one that was not alcohol-related."