Under Radar Effort to Make Tarrant Precinct 1 "Wet"

Under Radar Effort to Make Tarrant Precinct 1 "Wet "
By
James Scott Trimm 

Several cities (or parts of cities) in Tarrant County in Precinct 1, including Grapevine, Roanoke, Haltom City, Richland Hills, Watauga, and Hurst will have a proposition on the November 8th ballot to allow the sale of hard liquor and package stores. If the proposition passes as proposed in Precinct 1 city councils will have little control on the location of such stores, and for the first time ever we will have liqueur stores opening up on the street corners of our neighborhoods here in Precinct 1.

The effort to make our precinct "wet" has been done under the radar.  It is not on the ballot because citizens of our precinct organized themselves to bring liquor stores to our neighborhoods.   This measure is on the ballot because a paid organization used paid workers to canvas our voting locations at our last primary election. These paid workers got paid based on signatures gathered and pressured people to sign their petition saying that it was not a petition to introduce such sales to our precinct, but only a petition to let people have the right to vote on it (misleading). I was working my polling location (Hurst Hills Elementary School)  for candidates and I observed as these paid workers were so aggressive that they were crossing the poling place parameter line and even obstructing traffic in and out of the poling place.  The Election Judge for this voting precinct (3176) had to get involved, the Hurst Police were called and had to make it clear to these over aggressive workers that they were to respect the "line" and refrain from blocking traffic in and out of the voting location. 

Let me be clear, I am a proponent of liberty, but this vote is not about whether such sales should be regulated.  These sales always have been regulated by precinct and Precinct 1 has always been dry.  I might take a different position on complete a vote for complete deregulation of liquor sales statewide, but that is not the issue here.  The issue here is should Precinct 1 be sacrificed as "wet" (which normally brings a higher crime rate, more drunk drivers etc,.) while other precincts remain "dry" and enjoy lower crime rates at our expense. 

This is effectively a zoning issue.  Unfortunately the system Texas uses for making these decisions is somewhat archaic and ignores cities (which normally handle zoning) and makes no sense in Urban and Suburban areas where Precinct lines frequently divide cities.  In this case the line divides my city (Hurst) and groups part of Hurst with Haltom City and other cities.  (And I believe it would take a constitutional amendment to change this.)

In the end, as long as some precincts are wet and some are dry, in that context of the regulation that currently exists, I believe it is in the best interests of Precinct 1 to remain "dry" and I encourage everyone in our precinct to vote "NO" to this proposition and to spread the word to your neighbors.