The city of Houston was the most recent neighbor of Calhoun County to vote to legalize the sale of alcohol within its limits.
The Chickasaw County city legalized beer, light wine and liquor with more than 70% approval in the July 9 special election.
Work continues to get the issue on a referendum in Calhoun County for the voters to decide, but several hundred signatures are still required to make that happen.
Because of its population, Houston was able to set a special election without a petition drive. Bruce Mayor Rudy Pope stated last year Calhoun County Supervisors could decide to do the same thing in this county and bypass the need to collect signatures, but the county board has thus far declined.
The local signature effort has collected almost 1,500 signatures on both the liquor, and beer and light wine petitions. To advance to a referendum, 1,500 signatures of registered voters must be obtained for a liquor vote to be held and 2,000 signatures must be obtained for beer and light wine. The local group collecting signatures has said they prefer to get the number needed on both petitions before turning them in rather than trying to proceed with just liqour only.
Bruce, Calhoun City, Vardaman and Derma cannot choose on their own to have a vote to make their individual towns wet, because their populations don’t meet the minimum set by state statute.
They can only become wet by the entire county becoming wet.
Pittsboro was the exception due to a law passed by the legislature that gave all county seats, regardless of size, the option to vote on liquor, but not beer.
The town held a special election in December of 2014 with 70% voting in favor. Today the town has a liquor store (Pittsboro Liquor and Wine) and restaurant (El Jefe Mexican Restaurant) that sell alcohol.
There are only five counties left in the state that are completely dry – Webster, Choctaw, Benton, Smith and Walthall. All others either are completely wet or have at least one municipality that is wet.
Houston joins Okolona as both wet municipalities in Chickasaw County, which remains dry. The city of Pontotoc is the only wet portion of Pontotoc County. The same goes for Oxford in Lafayette County. Yalobusha and Grenada counties are both entirely wet.
Supporters of making Calhoun County wet suggested they are planning a door-to-door campaign in the coming months in an effort to get the remaining signatures needed to force a referendum next year.