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The Progress
Editorial
April 14,2022
From the Staff
Jasper council on slippery slope
with alcohol ordinances
At a work session and followup meeting
earlier this month, the Jasper City Council
decision and discussion regarding alcohol or
dinances were intended to be well-consid
ered, thoughtful rides to guide the city as it
expands the entertainment portion of the
growing downtown economy. The council
clearly had good intentions to remove obsta
cles for seniors in assisted living homes to
have a few drinks and to cut away some of
the archaic ordinances regarding well-estab
lished institutions like happy hours.
The fact that wineries, distillers and mi
crobreweries are popping up everywhere,
even in the most isolated areas of the Peach
State is no secret. Nor is the apparent draw
they can be, with planners everywhere hop
ing to capitalize on their popularity to spill
over into neighboring business areas. Come
have a unique beer or two, then go shopping,
eat dinner, let the kids get an ice cream.
Council members are right in their desire
to support this industry, but both their lan
guage at the meeting and decision regarding
food trucks as kitchens send another message
entirely - of arbitrary decisions guesstimated
at by council members and a lurking fear that
a party atmosphere might develop if they
don’t keep a firm hand on the rudder.
This was most evident in the presentation
by their attorney, who expressed concern
about “beer bars,” places that sell only beer
with no kitchen. Even if it’s “high end” the
attorney said he would still be worried as
though there is a segment of the population
just waiting on someone to let their guard
down and then, “It’s party time baby.” He
went on to comment that he would be wary
of any ordinance allowing a business where
they provide regular drinks and then rotate
from different food trucks to provide a menu.
As the attorney pointed out this would cause
problems if the food trucks didn’t show up.
He said it might bring up a question of
whether the place is still able to serve the al
cohol if it’s kitchen had re-routed to else
where? Jasper has relaxed one ordinance
allowing eateries to have a 50/50 alcohol
food ratio; it had been 70/30.
The problem with his trying to apply some
brakes is there are already two, and about to
be three, places downtown that serve alcohol
without kitchens - a microbrewery, a wine
tasting room and a forthcoming distillery.
Needless to say the horse is already out of
that bam and thus far causing no havoc.
Simply put, it’s too late to start hand-
wringing about whether some place may sell
too much beer and not enough food when
you have businesses already doing that (and
again, with no problems), and we have coun
cil members going all in for an amphitheater
where we’ll bet some casual alcohol con
sumption will coincide with the concerts.
At its root level, the council loosening the
alcohol codes in some points and holding
firm in others appears to be a case of them
trying to enforce personal preferences on li
bations - wine, okay; beer made on site,
okay; all drinks sold in places that sell food,
okay; but beer sold in places that don’t sell
food is not okay if the beer wasn’t made
there? The wine is not made in the wine tast
ing room, so why not have a beer tasting
room?
At one point the town’s attorney pointed
out the challenge of regulating what is “high
end beer,” pointing out if someone served
Heineken would that be enough to count as a
high end beer? And would it require someone
spending all their time judging high end from
regular beer? Not a bad job we’d say.
But the point is the council has set them
selves on a slippery slope, a shifting deck -
an inconsistent position if they continue try
ing to assess how drank the public might get
with any proposed business plan and then
regulate it to let some, but not too much,
drinking occur.
We would encourage them to hold tight
with a few basic ground rules involving
events, noise spilling into the streets, disrupt
ing other businesses, and let their police ful
fill their role in policing to spot and deter
problems if they occur.
We applaud the council for doing their
part to let business thrive in downtown,
which for all governments is mostly staying
out of the way. But with alcohol ordinances,
we’d encourage them not to be on a slippery
slope when figuring out how many drinks are
too many.
Tell us your thoughts with a letter to the editor. E-mail to news@pickensprogress.com
See letter submission guidelines on the Letters to the Editor page or call us 706-253-2457.
Hugh Pendley unsupervised
with a word processor
A word on
chickens coming
home to roost
There is an old saying in Ap
palachia: the chickens come
home to roost. Roost is where
they spend the night, hopefully a
safe place away from critters that
eat chickens. This saying means
you'll reap what you sew, a prim
itive expression of kanna.
When I was young, dad had
four chicken houses that held
36,000 chickens. I was sur
rounded by 72,000 dram sticks.
These were fryers, not layers so
I was not bothered with picking
up eggs.
One of the early methods of
feeding them was a hanging
feeder. It was a tube with a pan
at the bottom. It was suspended
from the ceiling and filled each
morning. The chickens ate the
feed in the pan and you would
shake the tube in circular motion
to fill the pan again. This was
known as “shaking the chicken
feed,” unlike the birds coming to
roost, this has no other meaning
that I know.
Growing up around so much
poultry, I observed strange
things about chickens.
• I would hold one and it
would try to hold it’s head in the
exact same place as you moved
it around. It was like it had a
gyro. I still have no idea why
birds do this.
• I could be in the chicken
house and be still and they
would ignore me - like they
couldn't see me. When I moved
they would panic, just like some
monster on a movie that are at
tracted only to movement. Bees
do much the same thing.
• If something made too
much movement in the chicken
house and scared the whole
flock, they would ran to the
other end, crossing the 300 feet
of open chicken house in a
squawking, turbulent flood.
They called this “packing up," a
phrase that only comes up in
chicken discussions as far as I
know. The “pack up” could
leave birds four feet deep and the
ones on the bottom would
smother. Hundreds could be
killed.
• Electric timers were used to
turn the lights on. If the power
went off and the lights didn't
come this would cause them to
panic and “pack up.” Sudden
movement meant panic, but so
did sudden darkness. The solu
tion for the feathered fears of the
dark was to let it get dark for a
hour or two in the evening and
then turn the lights on. Same in
the morning, this way they were
accustomed to darkness.
• When it was time to catch
them, they replaced the white
lights with red ones and the
chickens could see nothing. This
way they didn't panic while
being caught. I can’t explain
why the red light works.
There are a lot of things I
can’t explain about chicken be
havior or the world.
I've long wondered if the
chickens will come home to
roost for the world one day be
cause of some of the things peo
ple have done.
[Hugh Pendley is a native of
Pickens County who occasion
ally contributes to the Progress.]
WEATHER
By William Dilbeck
HI
LOW
RAIN
April
5
59
50
1.50
April
6
70
48
.25
April
7
63
39
.00
April
8
50
36
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April
9
49
30
.02
April
10
68
31
.00
April
11
64
47
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(USPS 431-820)
Published by Pickens County Progress, Inc.
94 North Main Street, Jasper, GA 30143
(706) 253-2457
www.pickensprogressonline.com
DAN POOL
Publisher/Editor
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Other Voices
What is the secret to happiness?
but that other factors such as from our analysis that it is
CAES economist Susana Ferreira ’s World Values Sur
vey asked people how satisfied they were with their life as
a whole.
By Leonor Sierra
CAES News
“In economics, for a very
long time, we've been fo
cused on measuring things
that may not reflect very well
an individual's well-being,
things like GDP (gross do
mestic product) for exam
ple,” said CAES economist
Susana Ferreira. “Over the
last couple of decades, there
has been a push for expand
ing how we measure eco
nomic and social progress,
including indicators of self-
reported well-being.”
A mixture of individual
factors (such as income and
employment status or reli
giosity) and country-level
factors (from level of corrup
tion to pollution) affect how
satisfied people are with their
lives, but some big contribu
tors to happiness, such as cul
ture or values, are harder to
quantify and compare.
A new study by Univer
sity of Georgia researchers
looks at what factors affect
people’s happiness around
the world.
Susana Ferreira, an envi
ronmental economist in the
College of Agricultural and
Environmental Sciences
(CAES) Department of Agri
cultural and Applied Eco
nomics, is interested in how
this study can inform policies
that could improve life satis
faction.
“In economics, for a very
long time, we've been fo
cused on measuring things
that may not reflect very well
an individual's well-being,
things like GDP (gross do
mestic product) for exam
ple,” said Ferreira. “Over the
last couple of decades, there
has been a push for expand
ing how we measure eco
nomic and social progress,
including indicators of self-
reported well-being.”
Working with CAES un
dergraduate student Jacque
line Kessler and Texas A&M
University postdoctoral re
search associate Mona Ah-
madiani, Ferreira analyzed
data from nearly 100 coun
tries gathered between 1995
and 2014. The data, collected
as part of the World Values
Survey, asked respondents:
“All things considered, how
satisfied are you with your
life as a whole these days?”
The answers were given
on a 10-point scale from
“completely dissatisfied” to
“completely satisfied.” Re
searchers then combined the
information already included
in this survey, such as income
or marital status, with 12 pos
sible factors of life satisfac
tion at a country level from
other sources, including such
elements as GDP, level of
democracy and exposure to
pollution.
The paper’s authors were
able to confirm that certain
individual factors such as in
come and unemployment and
macroeconomic variables
such as GDP are important
predictors of life satisfaction,
pollution levels, social capi
tal or life expectancy matter
greatly.
The statistical models,
however, failed to explain a
large portion of the differ
ences in life satisfaction
across countries. For exam
ple, Latin American countries
show high levels of happi
ness, much higher than
would be predicted by their
income levels and other so
cioeconomic characteristics.
Ahmadiani, the paper’s
first author, said these differ
ences across countries are a
bit of a “black box.”
“There are a lot of other
factors at the country level
that you cannot find data
for,” she said. “From some of
my other research, and some
of what we see here, I think
culture and values are a huge
part of these cross-country
differences, and it is clear
hugely important.”
Further research is needed
to understand what these cul
tural values may be, as well
as the influence of environ
mental factors, said Ahmadi
ani, who will continue her
research on the subject.
For environmental econo
mists like Ferreira, research
ing what environmental
factors are closely tied in
with well-being remains the
focus, with the hope that it
can lead to policies that im
prove people’s quality of life
— objectively and subjec
tively.
“What is the secret of hap
piness?” asked Ferreira. “If
we don't do research then we
will not know the answer. So
we want to bring a scientific
approach to try to understand
this important question.”
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