Newspaper Page Text
B ATTO OGA ONE OF 17 6 DRY’ COUNTIES
Legal Liquor Gains in Georgia
(EDITOR’S NOTE: The fol
।wing article, which appeared
। the November, 1972, issue
I' Georgia County Govern
tent Magazine, published by
Association County Com
ussioners of Georgia, points
ut the expanding list of local
ies in the state which are
galizing the sale of alcoholic
everages. Although Chattooga
listed as one of 17 remaining
ounties in Georgia that is
gaily dry, few local residents
vould be so naive as to say
hat alcoholic beverages are not
old here.)
“Cities and counties that
iave legalized the sale of liquor
re dividing a revenue pot in
xcess of s3l million yearly.
WHO IS GETTING YOUR
iHARE?
Truthfully, if your locality
loes not regulate the sale of
jeer, wine, and distilled spirits
md collect a tax on their sale,
hen your citizens who buy
iquor are making a gift of their
ax to some other locality.
The list is expanding rapid
y, but the State Revenue
Jepartment’s latest word is
hat beer sales are legal in 93
i-ounties and hard liquor in 42.
This is only part of the
;tory though, for recent legisla
tion has allowed municipalities
within dry counties to hold
their own separate referenda.
As a result, cities in 49 of the
“dry” counties have legalized
beer while 18 cities in 17 dry
counties have legalized spirits.
(Hereafter for convenience, we
shall refer to beer, wine, and
distilled spirits collectively as
liquor.)
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Os the state’s entire 159
counties, only 17 claim to be
dry countywide. Even these 17
practice a qualified sort of
prohibition. According to a
spokesman for the Georgia
Beer Wholesalers Association,
several issue letters to clubs
permitting them to sell beer to
members. Others simply ignore
club sales by an informal
“gentlemen’s agreement”
between officials and club
management.
Liquor is bought, sold, and
imbibed in every county of the
state. Legality of sale has little
if anything to do with the per
capita consumption, but it has
a great deal to do with govern
ment revenue, sales to minors,
and bootlegging.
In 1971 alone the state
taxed legal beer sales
$28,281,225. This amount in
cluded about $150,000 in
retailers’ license fees. Cities and
counties divided about $25
million from taxes on beer.
Georgia has the nation’s
highest beer tax with the state
taking 3.5 cents per 12-oz.
container and the localities
averaging 4.5 cents per 12-oz.
Localities, which are allowed
to set their own beer tax with
out limitation, charge any
where from 10 cents to $1.75
per case, a difference which
makes travel worthwhile for
many purchasers.
The state tacks $3.75 per
gallon onto the $10.50 federal
tax on hard liquor, and locali
ties are allowed to levy up to
80 cents per gallon. From this
tax on distilled spirits, the state
takes in almost S3O million.
Licensing ot package stores
accounts for approximately
$230,000. The cities and coun
ties that allow sale of distilled
spirits shared $6,388,299 in
1971.
In all these revenues, there
was no excessive overhead.
Liquor taxes are paid at the
distillery or brewery before
sale to wholesalers. Cost of ad
ministering these taxes was
solely in the enforcement area
inspections of premises and
sales practices, as well as the
constant surveillance for boot
legging.
A county board of commis
sioners has the authority to
legalize beer sales. No referen
dum is required, though some
commissioners have ordered
one to sample public opinion
and to “spread the blame.”
Some are very sensitive to criti
cism from religious groups that
advocate total abstinence.
Admitting the existence of
illegal liquor sales in their
counties, a few commissioners
have said they regret playing
the role of a hypocrite in not
“going wet,” but they honestly
fear to buck organized resis
tence to legal liquor.
Authorities point out that
the correlation between dry
counties and moonshining
activity would dismay advo
cates of abstinence. In many
communities, they are the in
nocent dupes of the moon
shiner and the bootlegger.
To distinguish between the
two, "moonshiner” refers to
the person who makes liquor
without the required surveil
lance of federal authorities and
who pays no tax whatever on
it: "bootlegger” refers to the
person who sells any liquor,
tax-paid or otherwise, in a ter
ritory where sale is not
legalized.
Henry County is one that
took the referendum route to
legal beer sales. To sweeten the
question, the county pledged
that the first $125,000 in beer
tax revenue would be ear
marked for education. The
public approved this proposi
tion, and Henry County began
in 1969 regulating the sale of
beer and taxing 5 cents per
12-oz. can, slightly higher than
the state average.
Revenue tops the $125,000
figure, but not by much. The
overage is left to the county
board of commissioners to
spend at their discretion. They
take care to channel the beer
revenue into popular benevo
lent use.
Contrary to popular belief,
the push for legal liquor sales is
not confined to the big cities.
Unadilla, Greenville, Tennille,
and Hiram, towns of less than
2,000 population, have all
legalized liquor as has tiny
Arcade in Jackson County.
This small community just
north of Athens has an out
standing beer market. Though
the population numbers only
229 by the 1970 census, the
town’s beer consumption
reportedly registered more
than 500,000 cases in 1971.
The reason, of course, is not
Arcade’s own thirst, but the
fact that it has the lowest tax
in the state-only 10 cents per
case-and its proximity to the
Athens market. Jackson
County itself is dry, as are un
incorporated Barrow and Madi
son counties. They are part of
Arcade’s trade area.
Ten cents per case may
seem an insignificant tax, but
apply it to half a million cases
and you have $50,000 in reve
nue for a locality. Arcade likes
that sort of arithmetic. The
town recently voted to legalize
hard liquor sales at a low tax of
10 cents per gallon. The legisla
ture would have allowed them
up to 80 cents, but local offi
cials feel they would rather en
courage higher volume sales.
Actually, the local tax on dis
tilled spirits is not high enough
to encourage buyers to travel
for a bargain.
There are other examples
around the state of isolated
wet counties that get more
than their share of liquor sales.
Gilmer County chalks up un
usually high beer sales by
virtue of being the only wet
county in the north central
part of the state. As shown by
the accompanying map, several
cities in the mountain counties
allow legal liquor sales, but the
counties are dry. Towns,
Banks, Rabun, Floyd, and
Gilmer are the only exceptions.
Another “dry” band extends
through south Central Georgia.
The inconsistency of legal
ized liquor is puzzling to many
tourists and might be to the
state's citizens if they could see
the whole picture. Georgia has
cities such as Calhoun and
Gainesville, La Grange and
Walnut Grove that allow both
beer and hard liquor sales
though the county in which
they are located remains dry. A
club in almost any town and
county can sell liquor while the
restaurant across the road may
require the patron to “brown
bag” his drinks and buy only
set-ups from the establishment.
Bootleggers and moon
shiners capitalize on this incon
sistency, and on some people's
preference to drink surrepti
tiously probably a holdover
from Prohibition days.
A combined tax of $15.05
per gallon of distilled spirits
helps perpetuate moonshining.
And although federal authori-
ties say their public education
program and their concentra
tion on the large producers is
gradually reducing this famous
Georgia “industry,” it still
enjoys a big market.
The Alcohol, Tobacco, and
Firearms Division of IRS esti
mates that about 10,000
gallons of moonshine enters
the Atlanta metro area weekly.
That comes to better than
500,000 gallons per year that
evades taxes amounting to at
least $7 million. Assuming that
the moonshine customers
would purchase bonded
whiskey if the illegal stuff were
not available, the federal
government would take in
$5.25 million in taxes, the
state $1,875 million, and local
governments about
$400,000 ... in metro Atlanta
alone.
Enforcement officials are
concerned with more than
revenue, however. They point
out that lead salts contained in
much of the “radiator brew” is
damaging, if not deadly to
regular users. Further, the
bootlegger is under no re
straints about selling to minors.
He has no license to protect.
Cities and counties that
have recently legalized the sale
of liquor regard the “no sales
to minors” aspect of the law
one of their strongest reasons
for deciding to regulate sales.
They can enforce the age limit
restrictions on a package store,
but not on the man who opens
an auto-trunk-lid store behind
the school. The only thing that
can put this kind out of busi
ness is a legally regulated liquor
outlet.
Not even A. T. & F. officers
attempt to estimate the
number of unscrupulous indivi
duals who engage in liquor
sales in dry counties, how
much they sell, and how much
they may bring into Georgia
from other states where taxes
are lower. They know it is a lot
and that Georgia loses both
liquor and sales tax revenue
through their operations. Prob
ably more damaging in the long
run is that minor children have
no protection from the boot
legger.
Some of the commissioners
in Georgia’s 66 dry counties
will be considering the liquor
question this year. They will be
weighing the opposition of
some of their churchmen
against the reality that liquor is
being sold in their counties il
legally. Would it be better to
legalize sale so as to regulate it,
reduce bootlegging, reduce or
eliminate sale to minors and
capture liquor tax revenue that
is presently going to other
counties?
One way a county commis
sion can act to take the pres
sure off its own members and
still not avoid the issue is to
appoint a local study com
mittee to examine the case for
legal liquor. The committee
can research actual conditions,
talk with law enforcement offi
cers, hold public hearings and
whatever else they deem neces
sary to get the facts. If on the
basis of their study the com
mittee then recommends legal
izing liquor, the commissioners
should find themselves in a
more comfortable pos tion
with both their consciences
and their constituents.
Counties that have “gone
wet” will be just as glad to see
the 66 other ones remain dry.
Consumption of alcoholic
beverages does not noticeably
increase when sales are legal
ized, so the revenue pot does
not grow at any faster rate.
There are just more local
governments sharing in it when
they legalize sales.
SUMMARY
To legalize beer, the com
mission can decide the issue
itself without a referendum. To
hold a special referendum on
beer, in the Attorney General’s
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2. How many games did
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BIBLE VERSE
’’Where the spirit of the
Lord in, there is liberty.”
1. Who is the author of the
above statement?
2. To whom was he writing 9
3. Has this statement prov-
en to be true?
4. Where may it be found 9
Ais won to Bible Verse
1. Paul the Apostle.
2. The Christians at Cor
inth.
3. It certainly has.
4. II Corinthians 3:17.
unofficial opinion, would be to
load unnecessary expense on
the taxpayers since the law
clearly states that the county
commissioners themselves
should decide the question.
If there has never been a
restriction against the sale of
wine in a particular county, the
commission may also act alone
to legalize its sale and issue
licenses for that purpose. An
existing prohibition against
wine can be eliminated only by
a referendum, however.
Distilled spirits can be legal
ized only through public refer
endum. What a county decides
is not binding on a municipal
ity within that county, because
a recent state law authorizes a
city to hold separate referen
dum and determine its own
course .... ”
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The Oldest and Largest Bank in Chattooga County
■mb hjiiit* Ibbb tbM U> » 3OOUO -
f I SERVING CHATTOOGA COUNTY AND AREA I
| SINCE FEBRUARY, 1926 J
o»o«n co«*<M*tK> HOURS: Mond Ry, Tuesday, Thursday, 9.00 am. - 4.00 f^hlay, 2:00
a.m. - 2:oofp.m and 4-6 p.m.: Saturday, 9:00 ajn. -12 Noon, Drive-la
Window Open 12-2:00 p.m. Closed Wednesday.
TWO CONVENIENT LOCATIONS—SUMMERVILLE I TRION
Consumers
Want to Know
by MARGARET SPADER
Director of Consumer Affairs
National Association of Manufacturers
Why do bread, wrappers list
calcium propionate and omit
all other ingredients?
Since the composition of
bread is defined in FDA reg
ulations, only preservatives
must be listed as required by
law. Calcium propionate is
added to bread to retard
spoilage. It is the calcium
salt of propionic acid, a
compound found widely in
natural and processed foods.
Why are so many different
food additives used in bread?
Some additives used in
bread are yeast foods, others
are preservatives that keep
bread from becoming moldy
in the home. Some additives
make it possible to handle
dough at high speeds, thus
The Summerville News, Thurs., Dec. 14, 1972 ft
keeping bread prices down.
Before food additives can be
used they must first be dem
onstrated to be harmless.
Then they must be proven to
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only be used at the level per
mitted—that is, to achieve
the intended purpose.
Who checks on food proces
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conform to laws?
The Food and Drug Admin
istration has inspectors vis
iting factories, warehouses
and stores to collect samples
in a continuous watch for
products that are below
standard. Court action may
be taken if manufacturers do
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What’s the difference be
tween process cheese food
and process cheese spread?
Process cheese food is a
blend of fresh and aged nat-
Turkey, Ham Shoot
The Cloudland Volunteer
Fire Department will sponsor a
turkey and ham shoot in the
vicinity of the Georgia-
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All Cloudland residents who
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Qualified shooters will be
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ural cheeses that have been
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Process cheese spread is soft
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perature. It contains less fat
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13-A