From the publisher: Legislators! Please stick to business
Valdosta Daily Times
By Sandy Sanders
In less than a month, our local
representatives and senator will join their peers in Atlanta for the
2009 session of the Georgia General Assembly. My New Year’s wish is
that they will stick to business and remember these are serious times …
this is no time for frivolous legislation and bickering.
From the Speaker’s GREAT plan for education
and vetoes in the House, there was no time for the budget. This year,
please stay focused.
A Republican senator from Midland told the
Associated Press recently that he intends to reintroduce the Sunday
alcohol sales bill again this year. He says the time is good because
the state is trying to figure out what to do with a budget deficit that
some say could go over $2 billion. The bill has failed for two years
and the governor says he opposes Sunday sales.
Here’s how I feel — we are one of three
states in the country that does not allow sales on Sunday. The proposed
legislation, if passed and signed by the governor, does not carry a
start selling July 1 option. The bill requires local officials to put
the matter before their citizens in a local referendum. A Savannah
Morning News editorial said it well this week. It is time for the
legislators to “treat their constituents like grown-ups.”
Don’t waste your time this year fighting
over this … let that be done on the local level where people know what
is best for their community.
I read editorials this week that made strong points in favor of this bill’s passage, here is a little of what they wrote.
Savannah Morning News: “Such local votes
mean communities could block alcohol sales on Sunday if a majority of
voters opposed it. By the same token, if a majority of voters wanted
it, then those who’d like to drop by the store on Sunday to pick up a
bottle of pinot noir or some pale ale for dinner could win the right to
do so at the ballot box.”
Ledger-Enquirer (Columbus): “Sunday liquor
laws in Georgia are nothing short of nonsensical: On-premise
consumption is legal, while purchasing beer, wine or spirits for
consumption elsewhere is not. You can get snockered at a public place
and then get behind the wheel; what you can’t do on Sunday in Georgia
is drive sober to a store, purchase the adult beverage of your choice
and drink it in the relative safety — yours and everyone else’s — of
your own home.
“The state Christian Coalition leader’s
comparison of Harp’s proposal to legalized prostitution is absurd.
Retail sale of alcoholic beverages, unlike prostitution, is lawful
already; it is banned on Sunday by a law everybody understands is an
implicit religious prohibition on the population at large.”
Athens Banner-Herald: “Surveys have found a
majority of Georgians want a chance to vote on Sunday sales. A widely
referenced InsiderAdvantage survey from a couple of years ago found 58
percent of Georgians want that opportunity to cast a ballot on the
issue. Interestingly, after survey respondents were told Georgia is one
of only three states that don’t allow store sales of alcohol on Sundays
— Connecticut and Indiana are the other two — 66 percent of survey
respondents said they favored local votes.”
