Numbers Not Always Clear In Local Alcohol Sales Debate

For both proponents and opponents of local alcohol sales, there is plenty of statistical material around to support their views.

Finding something substantial or irrefutable is a little different story.

Voters in the city of Wills Point will have a proposition before them on May 9 to legalize the sale of beer and wine for off-premise consumption only.

If it passes, Wills Point would become the first city in Van Zandt County to legalize the retail sale of alcohol since the state of Texas mandated local option elections more than a century ago.

Supporters say local alcohol sales will boost the city’s sales tax revenue, possibly providing funding for city projects like street repairs and water and sewer upgrades.

Opponents have countered that the revenue boost will be minimal and offset by a need for more police officers. They also argue there will be an increase in alcohol-related accidents and violent crime.

The answers that can be found largely depend on where one looks.

There is one fact that can be agreed upon regardless of which side of the issue one stands: Wills Point is not alone in dealing with the question recently.

Two other cities within 50 miles of Wills Point — Greenville and Malakoff — voted to go wet last November. The city of Emory in Rains County, just a 25-mile drive from Wills Point, also has a local option election set for May 9.

But just how much alcohol sales will impact local sales tax revenue is hard to determine because of the way sales tax payments are made and reported.

"You can’t get individual business sales tax numbers," said Louann Confer, city administrator in Mabank, which voted in beer and wine off-premise and restaurant mixed drink sales in May 2004.

"I would say our sales tax revenue is at least staying steady and it depends on which month you look at compared to last year," she said.

As an example, the city took in $106,465.83 in sales tax payments in February, a 1.77 percent increase over the February 2008 total of $104,617.11.

However, comparing the May 2008 total of $101,289.92 to the May 2007 total of $110,034.25 shows a significant decline of almost eight percent.

Confer said she attributes the big sway in revenue, in part, to two factors: the general economic slump and a highway widening project through Mabank.

"Also, the monthly totals can vary based on payment schedules. Some pay monthly, some only each quarter, and when the city is getting money, it’s actually for the two months prior to that month," she said.

Just as Wills Point has had nearby towns Terrell and West Tawakoni selling alcoholic beverages for many years, Mabank was in a similar situation bordering Gun Barrel City, which allows retail sales of beer, wine and liquor.

Seeing a continual stream of traffic bypassing Mabank to get to Gun Barrel City was what spurred the local supporters to get an alcohol sales election on the ballot in 2004, Confer noted.

"That was a lot of it. The feeling was if people were going to drive three more miles and spend that tax money three miles away from us, and they could be accommodated here, why not and leave that tax money in the city of Mabank," she said.

Mabank has a Brookshire’s Grocery, as does Wills Point, and Confer said beer and wine "have boosted Brookshire’s sales."

That perception was confirmed this week by Brookshire’s spokesman Sam Anderson.

"Our experience has been that normally sales will increase between 5-7 percent where alcohol sales are approved in wet-dry elections," said Anderson. "That amount is not exclusively alcohol sales. Those customers will also purchase other items."

West Tawakoni City Administrator Cloy Richards said it is interesting to see several cities in the area consider the addition of alcoholic beverage sales in some form.

"To be honest, I kind of hate seeing all these (alcohol sales) elections pop up around us because their people are coming here to buy it," he said.

"The bottom line is that some people are going to buy beer and whoever they buy it from will benefit from it (sales tax revenue)," Richards added.

Whether bringing in alcohol sales can spur business growth, and possibly add jobs, is another question altogether.

"I’m not sure that somebody built a convenience store because they could sell alcoholic beverages," Confer said. She added that as of March, there had been no applications for an alcoholic beverage license by any of the current Mabank restaurant owners.

Richards said that in the current state of the economy for most cities, alcohol sales might serve as a way of recovering sales tax revenue lost from business closures.

"Chambers of commerce are always famous for encouraging citizens to shop at home. If you provide a way for taxpayers to shop at home, you’re that much ahead of the game," he said.

Opponents to the local option election fear Wills Point will see a substantial increase in crime, drunk driving incidents and alcohol-related deaths and accidents.

Just as with the sales tax revenue impact, statistics can both support and refute those fears.

The website AlcoholPolicyMD.com cites two published reports, one tying alcohol outlets to an increase in assaults and the other calculating an increase in alcohol-related accidents to new alcohol outlet openings.

In the case of the latter report, it estimates that a city of 10,000 people would experience roughly one more alcohol-related accident per year for every two new alcohol outlets that opened. Both reports were based on studies conducted in Los Angeles County in California.

Texas Department of Health Services statistics show something of a mixed bag in the cases of Hunt and Kaufman counties.

From 1998-2002, Hunt County’s alcohol-related deaths remained in the vicinity of 50 per year. The county’s number of substance-related accidents — not broken down between alcohol and other drugs — also remained steady from 1996-2001, peaking at 73 in 1997 and 1999.

However, DWI arrests in Hunt County plummeted from a high of 407 in 1998 to 154 in 2004, the most recent year for which totals were available. There was a similarly dramatic drop in Kaufman County from 322 in 1997 to 90 in 2004.

In addition, a report published in the Lufkin Daily News in October 2006 showed Texas counties that are completely dry with regard to off-premise alcohol sales had more than three times the number of alcohol-related traffic deaths per capita than counties that are completely wet.

Last year in Van Zandt County, there were 19 fatality accidents, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety office in Canton in a report published in the Van Zandt News in January.

Alcohol was among the factors cited as contributing to some of those accidents, but an exact number was not given.

Opponents have also voiced concern about the possible negative effects of local alcohol sales on youths. That is spurred by reports such as a criminal justice community plan for Kaufman County in 2005, which cited a 16 percent increase in alcohol-related deaths among youths between 2000 and 2001.

It is an important concern to Brookshire’s and its locations that are allowed to sell alcoholic beverages, Anderson said, adding that Brookshire’s has policies in place to prevent sales to minors.

Each cashier must be TABC certified, he said, and the in-store computer system stops sales of alcohol until proper steps take place.

"The computer system stops the transaction, and flags cashiers to enter a date of birth," Anderson explained. "The policy is that anyone that looks as though they are under the age of 40 should be carded.

"We have a zero tolerance policy for any cashier that would sell to a minor," he added.