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House overrides Riley on alcohol
Published May 2, 2009
The House voted to buck Gov. Bob Riley on a bill that would give more towns the chance to decide on legalizing alcohol sales.
Riley vetoed the bill Tuesday and sent it back to the House. He was concerned that the bill included Sunday alcohol sales in Shelby County.
“This bill, as currently drafted, is unconstitutional in that it attempts to treat two different and distinct issues in one bill,” Riley wrote in a letter to House members.
But the House voted 54-19 Thursday to override the governor.
Neither of Marshall County’s House members voted for the override. Rep. Frank McDaniel, D-Albertville, opposed it, and Rep. Jeff McLaughlin, D-Guntersville, voted present.
The bill would allow towns in dry counties to vote on legalizing alcohol sales if they have 1,000 or more residents. Currently towns must have 7,000 to have such a vote.
Marshall County is dry, but Albertville, Arab and Guntersville all have gone wet in the last 25 years.
Rep. Jimmy Martin, D-Clanton, first proposed the bill as a way to give Chilton County towns in his district a chance to decide if they wanted to go wet.
The House passed Martin’s bill to let towns with 500 or more people have an alcohol vote, but a compromise in the Senate raised that to 1,000 or more people.
Douglas and Grant in Marshall County and Geraldine in DeKalb County would have been eligible to have a wet-dry referendum under the original version of Martin’s bill. Crossville still would meet the population requirement if the bill passes.
Four towns in Blount County could decide for themselves on alcohol sales if the bill becomes law. No town in the county reaches the threshold of having 7,000 people, and a countywide vote on alcohol failed last year.
The Marshall Baptist Association doesn’t want the bill to become law and asked Riley to veto it.
“We sent a letter, a resolution,” the Rev. Willis Kelly said. “We sent that to him right after it passed and asked him to veto it. I guess he got some word from a lot of other folks too.”
The Shelby County issue would allow restaurants there who sell alcohol on Sunday under a club license to continue doing so.
Other local lawmakers voting to override the governor’s veto include Reps. Craig Ford and Jack Page, both D-Gadsden.
Rep. Blaine Galliher, R-Rainbow City, voted no, and Reps. Todd Greeson, R-Ider, and Elwyn Thomas, R-Oneonta, voted present.
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