{"id":6155,"date":"2014-07-13T02:43:07","date_gmt":"2014-07-13T02:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/2014\/07\/13\/wipe-out-dry-precincts\/"},"modified":"2014-07-13T02:43:07","modified_gmt":"2014-07-13T02:43:07","slug":"wipe-out-dry-precincts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=6155","title":{"rendered":"Wipe out dry precincts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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An idea for a Texas constitutional amendment came to me today as I read a newspaper story about a petition to allow for beer and wine sales at a retail outlet planned for a Potter County justice of the peace precinct.<\/p>\n

Let’s call for an amendment to the Texas Constitution that allows Potter County to get rid of the prohibition.<\/p>\n

For that matter, why not vote statewide on eliminating all dry county precincts?<\/p>\n

Are we up for it?<\/p>\n

At issue is a petition to allow a proposed Sam’s Club box store planned for a site in far west Amarillo. It sits in JP Precinct 3, which is dry. To buy a mixed drink or a cold beer in JP 3, you have to join a private “club.” I found this out when I first moved to Amarillo in January 1995. I went to dinner one night, ordered a beer at Hoffbrau on Interstate 40 and Coulter, but had to join a club to buy a drink.<\/p>\n

What a joke.<\/p>\n

I’ve never quite understood, to be candid, how dry precincts and counties continue to have any relevance in this mobile society of ours.<\/p>\n

As for the Sam’s Club petition, to deny the retailer the chance to sell alcoholic beverages — beer and wine — is to deny the company a chance to enhance its profit, earn more revenue, thrive in a growing business climate. Why not allow the sale?<\/p>\n

I’m guessing it would require a constitutional amendment to enact the change, given that Texas counties are governed by state statute. Under state law, any constitutional amendment — no matter how “local” its implication — requires a vote of all Texans.<\/p>\n

The entire notion of dry justice of the peace precincts is an archaic notion that needs to be tossed aside.<\/p>\n\n

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An idea for a Texas constitutional amendment came to me today as I read a newspaper story about a petition to allow for beer and wine sales at a retail outlet planned for a Potter County justice of the peace precinct. Let’s call for an amendment to the Texas Constitution that allows Potter County to … Continue reading Wipe out dry precincts<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[244,1474,3677,4086,4596],"class_list":["post-6155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-alcohol-sales","tag-dry-precincts","tag-potter-county","tag-sams-club","tag-texas-constitution"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6155\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}