Unwanted Result of Ballot Confusion: A Beerless Town

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By MICHELLE YORK

Published: June 19, 2007

POTTER, N.Y., June 16 —This sleepy Finger Lakes town, which does not lay claim to any actual lakefront, misses much of the tourism that helps support the picturesque region. Agriculture is the main industry here in this dot of a town of 1,800, where drivers have to yield to roosters that wander onto the road.

Without help, the nearest six-pack will soon be 10 miles from Potter.

There are no bars or liquor stores, but the town does have three restaurants and one small grocery, which has long sold beer, lots of beer.

Residents say that nearly two years ago they made a sobering mistake that has bedeviled them ever since. While trying to grant one of the restaurants permission to serve beer and wine with meals, voters unwittingly banned the sale of all alcohol in the town’s 37 square miles.

“It got all screwed up,” said Katie Brown, the manager of Federal Hollow Staples, a grocery owned by her father, Frederick Brown, that was the first in town to get a liquor license, more than 30 years ago, and now relies on beer sales for 78 percent of its annual revenue. “We’re a farming town, you know?”

Since that 2005 vote, some townspeople have tried repeatedly to reverse the ban before Federal’s license expires on July 1 and the town effectively becomes dry again. A second referendum, in 2006, asked for permission to sell hard liquor, which residents approved — only to hear later from state officials that the new law did nothing to undo the ban.

A letter-writing campaign ensued, and the State Legislature recently passed a law extending Mr. Brown’s liquor license through November, and allowing the town to put the first proposal back before the voters this fall, waiving the state restriction that says a municipality must wait three years between such votes. [Christine Pritchard, a spokeswoman for Gov. Eliot Spitzer, would not say whether the governor would sign the bill. “We’ll review the legislation when it is delivered to our office for consideration,” she said on Monday.]

Before the mix-up, people here could buy beer in two places, the Federal Hollow and the Hitchin’ Rail, a combination convenience store, ice cream stand and restaurant.

Owners of the Hitchin’ Rail, a fixture here for decades, wanted to add wine and beer to the menu at the restaurant, where hearty meat loaf and pot roast entrees top out at $8.95.

It was not as simple as it seemed. state alcoholic beverage control laws require that whenever a town wants to expand the way it sells alcohol, it must ask voters five questions — “stupid questions,” according to the town supervisor, Leonard Lisenbee, a retired federal game warden who has been in office six years and who characterized the state-mandated wording as post-Prohibition-era legalese.

The questions, requiring more than 300 words, ask whether alcohol should be allowed in a variety of settings, including a hotel and, separately, a “summer hotel.” “Shall any person be authorized to sell alcoholic beverages at retail to be consumed on premises licensed pursuant to the provisions of Section 64 of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Law?” was the relevant one to the Hitchin’ Rail. But there was also “Shall any person be authorized to sell alcoholic beverages at retail, not to be consumed on the premises, where sold in the town of Potter?” which relates to stores like the Federal Hollow.

“I read it and I couldn’t understand it, and I’ve got a college education,” Mr. Lisenbee said. “When voters get confused, they vote no.”

And they did.

The voters said no to all five questions, not only keeping the Hitchin’ Rail’s restaurant from serving beer and wine, but also blocking both stores from selling it, upon the expiration of their current licenses. Which means that on July 1, when the Federal’s license expires, the closest six-pack available for purchase will be in a town 10 miles away.

The Hitchin’ Rail has already had to pull the beer from its convenience store, because its liquor license expired when a new owner, David Spampinato, took over last year.

“It really created a lot of hostility in this small town,” said Mr. Spampinato, who bought the Hitchin’ Rail between the 2005 and 2006 votes and has seen total revenue drop by a third since the beer ban. Despite the 2006 referendum, no one has stepped up to sell hard liquor.

The Browns returned to door-knocking, encouraging people to write to their legislators. State Senator George H. Winner Jr., a Republican from Elmira, whose district includes Potter, said letters pleading for help began to pour in, so he sponsored the bill providing the waiver and extension. “It’s extraordinarily unusual,” Mr. Winner said of the endeavor.

The Browns said they were confident that voters would understand the proposition this third time around and pass it.

“This is the only place where you can buy beer close to home,” said Bryan Brink, 32, who was among those to vote no on the first ballot and then regret it, as he stopped by the Federal Hollow on Saturday to buy a six-pack of Killian’s Irish Red.

Another customer, Ron Chapin, 45, picked up a six-pack of Labatt Ice on his way to visit his brother. “Why would somebody want to make this a dry community?” he asked as he stood in the summer sun. “It’d be a bummer.”

This was found at The New York Times.