The Pittsboro board of aldermen is scheduled to meet Tuesday, Oct. 21 to finalize plans for the Dec. 2 election in which the town’s citizens will decide whether to come out from under the county’s dry law.
Official certification of the signed petition has been granted, and town attorney Ben Suber has documented the last county vote on alcohol as stipulated in an opinion from the Attorney General’s Office.
The county voted by a 2-1 margin in September of 1966 to remain dry after the state legislature opened the door for any county that wanted to become wet. Calhoun has remained dry ever since despite several instances in which petitions were circulated in an attempt to force another countywide referendum on the matter.
Enough signatures have never been obtained to force a referendum since 1966. The option became available to Pittsboro in 2012 when the Legislature passed a new law allowing any town with a population greater than 5,000 and all county seats, which applies to Pittsboro, to hold a separate referendum if at least 20% of the registered voters in the town sign a petition requesting it. All other towns in Calhoun could only go wet by a countywide vote.
In 1966, the Pittsboro precinct voted 179-68 against whiskey and 179-70 against beer. In the Dec. 2 election, it will only be open to registered voters inside the town limits of Pittsboro, which is just over 100 people.
The total county vote in 1966 was 2,663-1,184 against liquor and 2,679-1,160 against beer, which constituted a 56% turnout of the registered voters in the county.
The only precincts in that election that were very close on either whiskey or beer were New Liberty and Bentley. New Liberty voted for whiskey 35-34 and the beer vote was 34-34. Bentley was 14-13 against whiskey and 16-10 against beer.
The Dec. 2 election in Pittsboro will also feature two ballots – one on whiskey and the other for beer. If either or both were to pass, regulation would then fall to the town board to establish whatever restrictions they wanted to place on how or where it could be sold.