By Brittany N. Howerton
After House Bill 175 passed in Alabama’s Legislature last year, reducing the municipal population requirement for holding a wet/dry referendum in most dry counties from 7,000 to 1,000, many communities were left to bide their time until it hit home.
Good Hope was one of them.
So when a referendum was set for June 1, local Baptist churches made plans of action.
The first move came March 25, when approximately 75 people from five area churches gathered at Good Hope Baptist Church to hear from Joe Godfrey, executive director of Alabama Citizens Action Program.
“What we’re dealing with is ‘big alcohol,’” Godfrey said.
He explained that bringing alcohol to new areas only creates opportunities for alcohol addiction and for alcohol companies to make more money.
“Why do you want to sell it here? It’s because you know the more it’s available, the more people are going to drink it,” Godfrey said. “That’s what big alcohol is interested in. They want to make more money and don’t care about the broken homes and destroyed lives.”
It’s important to “inform people about the laws and dangers of alcohol,” said Jack Collins, director of missions for West Cullman Baptist Association.
And that’s why he knows these kinds of meetings are important.
“Everyone who was there was there to help fight the wet/dry referendum,” said Ralph Andrews, pastor of Good Hope Baptist. He added that he hopes the information presented at the meeting validated “how devastating it is when a community does go wet … and all the different ways it negatively impacts the community.”
Godfrey said those include economic, social and health costs. “If you track the numbers for the last 10 years, it averages 12,000 to 15,000 deaths per year for alcohol-related deaths in traffic accidents. And that’s not including [cirrhosis] of the liver, hepatitis or other health issues that develop as a result of alcohol use.”
“And tax revenue is just penance,” Godfrey added. “It’s a small fraction of how much [money] really goes out.” Take Chambers County for example, he said. In 2001, the county sold almost $1.8 million in alcoholic beverages but the tax revenue was between $7,000 and $8,000.
“So there was $1.8 million coming out of the residents’ pockets, and the county only got $7,000 to $8,000. Where did the rest go?” Godfrey asked before answering his own question. “It went out of state. It went to big alcohol.”
Andrews said because his father was an alcoholic, “I know firsthand what happens.
“I know those who want it to go wet say, ‘Do it for the children’ (for tax revenue),” he said. “We’re saying, ‘Vote no and do it for the children because they’ll be impacted.’”
Andrews said the meeting was not only to show the community that there are people against alcohol but also that they are for the community and the children. Several Good Hope residents took time at the meeting to sign up to be a part of organizing to fight alcohol. Collins said the next step is to form committees, share information and statistics about alcohol and organize people to vote.
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