PRAIRIE GROVE, Ark. — An 80 year old law prohibiting the sales of liquor in certain parts of a small town is now causing controversy, and locals are looking for a change. The dry area of Prairie Grove is mainly impacting businesses downtown that want to sell liquor with the law allowing alcohol across U.S. Highway 72.
"The downtown area of Prairie Grove has always been the source of income," said Larry Nelson, downtown Prairie Grove business owner and supporter of the petition.
One revenue downtown Prairie Grove has been missing out on for nearly eight decades is liquor sales because of the dry area law.
"It's absolutely nothing that we can do about the dry area,” said Prairie Grove City Attorney Steven Parker.
Parker says it's because the law was voted on by the people of Prairie Grove. So, the people of Prairie Grove must vote to remove the law which was voted on in 1946.
That law passed a year after World War II ended, has held Nelson from revitalizing a shop next door to his current business. For the past five years, he has thought of making it into a restaurant but he hasn’t pursued his dreams, yet, because he can’t sell alcohol.
"Customers come through and ask me on a weekly basis, daily basis almost," Nelson said. “It's always been a question within the community and with city council meetings, but no one’s really ever pursued it."
That’s until now, some downtown business owners are laying petitions on their counters and are hoping to get enough signatures to place it on the November ballot but only certain signatures will be counted as valid.
"Only those people living in the boundaries of Prairie Grove as they existed in 1946 will get to vote,” Parker said.
Once there are enough valid signatures on the ballet, the next steps include getting it on the docket. Then having citizens vote on the measure.
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