Tag Archives: dry counties

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Canyon joins 21st century

Well done, Canyon, Texas voters.

You’ve awakened to the reality of life in the second decade of the 21st century, which is that we’re a mobile society and it no longer makes sense to cloister your community in the notion that staying “dry” somehow protects you from the evils of alcoholic beverages.

Canyon voters agreed to make the city “wet,” meaning that merchants will be able to sell adult beverages and eating establishments will be able to service liquor by the drink.

Will this turn Canyon into a din of debauchery where people get so drunk they stagger into the streets en masse?

Umm, no.

It means that businesses will be able to generate a little more revenue, improve their bottom lines and pump some of that money back into a community that can use a little help.

This hidebound notion of keeping a community dry used to make sense when we all got around on foot, or rode on horseback, or even at the start of the automobile age.

No more. We’ve gotten mobile. People are able to travel easily to the next city to purchase their hooch and bring it back.

I’m reminded of what a Department of Public Safety officer told me once while my wife and I were visiting Perryton, in Ochiltree County. He called the seven-mile stretch of U.S. 83 between Perryton and the Oklahoma state line one of the “most dangerous stretches of road in Texas.” Ochiltree County was dry and motorists would drive across the state line, get tanked up on liquor and then drive back home. They were impaired and the roadway was the scene of numerous wrecks each week, the DPS officer told me.

Ochiltree County has since gone wet. Traffic accidents along U.S. 83 have declined and business is booming in Perryton.

Canyon now has joined the 21st century club.

Welcome aboard.

 

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Time to 'dampen' Canyon

A little birdie has tipped me off to a possible sea change election coming up in a sleepy little town just south of Amarillo.

There might be a ballot measure up for decision this November that would determine whether Canyon, Texas — in the words of my little birdie-snitch — goes “damp.” He means voters could be asked to decide on a measure to allow the sale of liquor by the drink within the city limits.

My question is as it’s always been with regard to “dry” counties and communities: Why in this age of extreme mobility, when people can travel quickly from town to town, county to county, would you want to maintain a prohibition on the sale of liquor by the drink?

There once was a time — when we traveled by horse-drawn wagons or walked by oneself — when establishing dry communities made a modicum of sense. If you didn’t want people drinking in your town, then you banned it and forced them to stay in their own towns to drink until they passed out.

The invention of the automobile changed that.

Now we can drive from one city to the next. If your town doesn’t allow liquor by the drink, you get into your car and go the next city that does allow it. In Canyon’s case, it’s only about a 12-mile drive to the southern outskirts of Amarillo.

Another question: Why subject motorists, passengers — or other motorists — to those who might have imbibed a bit too heavily in Amarillo but choose to drive home to Canyon to sleep it off?

Am I condoning excessive drinking? Of course not. As one who only occasionally enjoys a cold beer on a hot day, I am acutely aware of the dangers of alcohol abuse. No one should fall victim to it and I do not wish our communities to become full of drunken sluggards.

My Canyon snitch said something about a meeting planned for Wednesday in which this ballot measure idea is discussed. I hope it produces a plan to proceed with an election.

I also hope the election occurs and the good folks of the Randall County seat decide to enter the 21st century.