DRY COUNTY

A 'dry county' is a county in the United States whose government forbids the sale of alcoholic beverages. There are hundreds of dry counties across the United States, although they are most common in the South and Mid-West. There are also smaller jurisdictions which prohibit the sale of alcoholic beverages, such as 'dry towns'. Although the 21st Amendment repealed the prohibition of alcohol, it specifically prohibits the selling or production of alcohol in violation of local laws. Some local governments that had passed local laws with respect to alcohol during Prohibition never re-legalized the sale of alcohol, maintaining a "dry" market.Dry counties Many of these counties and towns do not generally prohibit its consumption. Thus, they lose the profits and taxes from the sale of alcohol to their residents to "wet" or non-prohibition areas. The rationale for maintaining prohibition on the local level is often religious in nature, as many Protestant Christian denominations discourage the consumption of alcohol by their followers (see Christianity and alcohol). Similar laws designed to restrict the sale and consumption of alcohol are also common in the mostly LDS (Mormon) state of Utah. An additional more pragmatic intent of these laws is often to reduce alcohol consumption in that particular county (and the potential health, safety, and public order issues that can accompany it) by limiting the ease of acquiring it.
A 2004 survey by the National Alcoholic Beverage Control Association found over 500 municipalities in the United States to be dry, including 83 in Alaska. Almost one-half of Mississippi's counties are dry. Its alcohol laws are similarly complex. It is also illegal to transport unopened containers of alcohol across any dry county in the state. In Florida, five out of 67 counties are dry (they are Lafayette, Liberty, Madison, Suwannee, and Washington) all of which are located in the northern part of the state, an area that has cultural ties to the Deep South.

Contents

Dry counties in Alabama

Dry counties in Texas

Dry counties in Kentucky

Other notable "dry" jurisdictions

Transport

References

External links

Dry counties in Alabama

Alabama has 26 dry counties Alabama.. Within those 26 counties, 16 city governments have legalized alcohol sales inside their city limits.

★ In order for an Alabama city or county to hold a wet-dry vote, 25% of the voters in the preceding general election must sign a petition requesting a vote Code of Alabama.. Petitions can be made to go from dry to wet or wet to dry.

★ In dry counties, it is illegal to transport more than 1 case of beer and 3 quarts of liquor Alabama liquor laws.

Dry counties in Texas

Of Texas' 254 counties, 44 are completely dry and 169 are partially dry or "moist". The patchwork of laws can be confusing, even to residents. In some counties, only 4% beer is legal. In others, beverages that are 14% or less alcohol are legal. In some "dry" areas, a customer can get a mixed drink by paying to join a "private club," and in some "wet" areas a customer needs a club membership to get liquor-by-the-drink, reports the ''Fort Worth Star-Telegram''.
The newspaper demonstrates how variable the alcohol laws can be, even within small geographic areas. "Move from Fort Worth to Arlington and you’ll be surprised that you can buy beer but not wine at the grocery store. Move to Grand Prairie and you can’t even find beer there, but you can buy alcoholic drinks at restaurants in both towns. Then move to Burleson, which has alcohol sales in the Tarrant County portion of the city but not in the Johnson County side of town."^[1]

Dry counties in Kentucky

Of the 120 counties of Kentucky, 54 are completely dry and 30 are wet. Wet & Dry Counties in Kentucky The remaining 36 counties fall somewhere in between.

★ Under Kentucky Revised Statutes (KRS) 242.123, an individual precinct within a dry county that contains a USGA-regulation golf course may vote to allow the sale of alcoholic beverages by the drink on that specific course. As of the last officially published update on Kentucky wet and dry counties by the Kentucky Office of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) in August 2005, 13 courses in 10 different counties were approved for such sales.

★ KRS 243.155 allows individual precincts within dry counties to vote to allow a "small farm winery" to operate within the precinct. Once approved, a winery not only can produce and sell wine on its premises, but can also apply for a license to sell wine and beer by the drink in a restaurant located on its premises. As of August 2005, 11 wineries were operating in 9 dry counties under this statute; two other wineries, both in the same county, were similarly approved but have since closed. KRS 243.154 allows a wholesale distributor of wine produced in small farm wineries to operate in dry territory.

★ KRS 242.185(6) allows either a dry county or a city located in a dry county to vote to allow restaurants that seat at least 100 patrons ''and'' derive at least 70% of their total sales from food to serve alcohol by the drink. The Kentucky ABC listed 16 cities in 2005 that had voted to approve such sales, plus Oldham County and Shelby County outside of the wet city of Shelbyville. In April 2007, the city of Whitesburg voted to authorize such sales, Whitesburg Goes "Wet" and in May 2007 Boyd County voted to authorize such sales outside of the wet city of Ashland. All precincts but one vote yes

★ In addition to Shelbyville and Ashland, 14 other cities are wet cities located in dry counties. An otherwise dry county for general retail sales that contains a wet city is also known as a moist county.
A study of about 39,000 alcohol-related traffic accidents in Kentucky found that residents of dry counties are more likely to be involved in such crashes, possibly because they have to drive farther from their homes to consume alcohol, thus increasing impaired driving exposure. The study concludes that county-level prohibition is not necessarily effective in improving highway safety.

Other notable "dry" jurisdictions

★ Ocean City, New Jersey, a major beach-side resort city, is dry, and uses this fact to promote itself to tourists as family-friendly.

★ In December 2005, Bridgewater, Connecticut, became the last remaining "dry town" in that state.

★ The village of Ephraim, Wisconsin is the only dry municipality in Wisconsin; it has been dry since its founding in the mid-nineteenth century, and its anti-liquor laws have been upheld decisively in two referendums (in 1934 and 1992).

★ The city of Westerville, Ohio, was dry for well over a century. Once the home of the Anti-Saloon League and called the "dry capital of the world", the first legal drink in recent times was served in 2006.

★ The village of South Holland, Illinois has been a dry municipality since it was founded by Dutch Reformed immigrants in 1894.

★ The city of Monmouth, Oregon was the last dry municipality on the Pacific coast outside of Alaska until it removed its prohibitions on January 10 2003.

★ Some cities, like Jacksonville, Arkansas, are dry despite being otherwise located in a "wet" county. In nearby North Little Rock, the distinction of areas is even more specific, with a single township inside the city designated as a dry area.

★ Benton County, Arkansas in the northwest corner of the state, is considered one of the "wettest" dry counties with 186 private establishments.

★ The town of Panaca, Nevada, was southern Nevada's first permanent settlement, founded as a Mormon colony in 1864. It was originally part of Washington County, Utah, but the Congressional redrawing of boundaries in 1866 shifted Panaca into Nevada. However, it still remains Nevada's only dry municipality.

★ The consolidated city-county government of Lynchburg and Moore County, Tennessee is a dry county, notwithstanding that it is home to the Jack Daniel's distillery. (A special state law allows the distillery to sell small commemorative bottles of Jack Daniel's to tourists.)

★ Wayne County, Michigan is notable in that one cannot buy alcoholic beverages in any gas station there, possibly as a motive to discourage drunk driving. The 7-Eleven gas stations there are the only 7-Elevens that do not sell alcohol.

★ Pennsylvania You cannot buy beer or wine in a grocery store or a convenience store, other than non-acoholic beer, yet you still have to be 21 to buy that. You can only by wine in a state liquor store. You can only buy beer in a state beer distributor.

Transport

It had been considered because of the 21st Amendment, which repealed national prohibition and made alcohol prohibition a state matter rather than a federal one, that states had the power to regulate interstate commerce with respect to alcohol traveling to, from or through their state. While the 21st Amendment does give states the power to ban alcohol, that power is not absolute. The U.S. Supreme Court held in ''Granholm v. Heald'' that states do not have the power to regulate interstate shipments of alcoholic beverages. Therefore it may be likely that city, county or state ordinances banning possession of alcoholic beverages by passengers of vehicles operating in interstate commerce (such as trains and interstate bus lines) would be unconstitutional were passengers on such vehicles simply passing through the area.

References

1. Labbe, J.R. "You may need a drink to understand our liquor laws." ''Fort Worth Star-Telegram'', May 16, 2004.

External links

'Maps'

★ Alabama Wet & Dry Counties and Cities

★ Map of Wet and Dry Counties in Kansas

★ The Wet/Dry Issue in Texas

★ Dry towns in Massachusetts

★ [1], on the right-hand side list