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Voters to decide on downtown alcohol ban
By Rhiannon Meyers
The Daily News
Published October 18, 2009
FRIENDSWOOD — Voters will get a chance to decide whether the city’s downtown restaurants and grocery stores will be allowed to sell alcohol.
Early voting starts Monday. Election Day is Nov. 3.
Friendswood’s downtown corridor — a stretch of FM 518 between FM 528 and FM 2351 — has been dry since 1963. Only private clubs can sell alcohol in the dry area.
If voters approve both propositions, restaurants could sell wine, beer and mixed beverages, and grocery stores, wine stores and convenience stores could sell wine and beer.
Proposition 1 would allow for the sale of beer and wine for off-premise consumption.
Proposition 2 would allow restaurants to sell mixed beverages.
A group of business owners and developers calling themselves Friendswood Citizens for Better Business collected more than 12,000 signatures on a petition calling for an election.
Supporters said lifting the ban on alcohol sales would boost business downtown.
Mayor David Smith said permitting alcohol sales would the final piece of the city’s strategy to develop the downtown corridor. The city has improved drainage downtown and loosened restrictions on development to bolster business, he said.
“I think it’s very important for us to pass the issues in order to make the downtown that we’ve been working on for such a long time come to fruition,” Smith said.
There has been no formal, organized opposition, but some residents have argued lifting the alcohol ban would chisel away at the city’s heritage. The city was founded by Quakers. The city banned alcohol sales in April 1963, meaning alcohol cannot be sold in the part of the city that was incorporated when that ban was approved.
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Early Voting
When: Monday through Oct. 30
Times:
7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday
7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday
8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday
Polling place: Friendswood City Hall, 910 S. Friendswood Drive
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Election Day
Nov. 3
7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
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Voting By Mail
Voters may vote by mail if they are at least 65, disabled, confined in jail or expect to be absent from the county. Applications for mail ballots must be mailed to: City Secretary Deloris McKenzie, 910 S. Friendswood Drive, Friendswood, Texas, 77546-4856. All applications must be received no later than close of business Oct. 27.
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