Dry Again, Wet Again

Interesting article about the local option: to allow alcohol in your town or not. Link. Excerpt:

Hundreds of counties remain dry, [Sociology Professor David] Hanson says. Although the temperance movement of the late 1820s was rooted mainly in the North, most of today's dry communities are in the South. Hanson and others cite Kentucky as a state with a high concentration of antialcohol towns. A few years ago, all but a dozen or so Tennessee counties were dry.

"There are states in which there are wet towns in dry counties," Hanson says. "There have been times when a place would become dry and then become wet again, and back and forth. And after repeal [of Prohibition] in 1933, there were a number of states that elected to remain dry; then there were the larger number that chose to permit a 'local option,' " he adds. The last dry state, Mississippi, went to local option in 1965.

Reasons vary for going dry. Some communities, such as Harvey, Ill., were founded as dry in their charter, according to William Rorabaugh, author of "The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition" and a history professor at the University of Washington. The charter includes a provision that if alcohol were ever introduced, the town's property would revert to an original owner. Several similar provisions have been challenged in court and overturned.

Even some resort cities, such as Ocean City, N.J., and Moorhead City, N.C., are dry. Often, local residents want to keep out rowdy visitors, Professor Rorabaugh says.

We wouldn't live in a community that doesn't allow alcohol, but we revere the right of localities to decide the issue themselves. What did Voltaire say to Rousseau? "I may not agree with what you don't drink, but I defend your right not to drink it"?