Vinson’s Variety: Available liquor is the fair thing
Once again, the time is nigh, November, to cast a vote, yeah or nay, for liquor by the drink in McMinnville. As most are aware, legal liquor by the drink failed by a mere 10 votes when the referendum was voted on two years ago.
And, as indicated by the options of a yeah/nay vote, there obviously exists two sides concerning this controversial issue: those for liquor by the drink verses those against it. It well serves a sense of fairness, and freedom of speech, to scrutinize both sides.
Against liquor by the drink:
• Will cost lives and sacrifice safety.
• Will not bring an economic boom to the area.
• McMinnville won’t be that quaint little community we know.
Given the limited space afforded, I would like the opportunity to rebut the above three areas, specifically.
My rebuttal:
• It would be senseless to say a town, any town, wherever, featuring liquor by the drink would not be somewhat of a factor in lives lost and overall safety. However, the objective mind is forced to entertain this reality: McMinnville has the geographic uniqueness of being strategically located between Spencer and Manchester, both featuring liquor stores.
Folks living in one sector of McMinnville patronize the Spencer liquor store, and folks residing in another sector patronize one of several in Manchester, approximately a 25-mile/30-minute drive, one way, to either.
As mentioned in a similar article a couple years back, reckon how many McMinnvillians patronizing the Spencer and Manchester liquor stores mix up a “good-un” and consume it on the drive back? A majority, correct?
So, ask yourself, which cost more lives and more so threatens the collective safety of McMinnville and its residents, purchasing $5-a-shot (one ounce) or adding a few more dollars, purchasing a liter and guzzling at will over a 25-mile distance.
• I find it borderline meritless, to say liquor by the drink will not bring an economic boom to the area. Just consider neighboring Coffee County-Manchester/Tullahoma. Since voting in liquor by the drink, in addition to the popular Crockett’s, major chain restaurants such as O’Charley’s and Ruby Tuesday’s have successfully set up shop.
I have a friend, a McMinnville resident, who works at O’ Charley’s in Manchester. Sure, she could find work in McMinnville, but make the same money she makes at O’Charley’s in Manchester, no. That’s the economic difference I worth noting, not all-encompassing nor absolute, but still an economic difference. It’s worth the drive for her.
If liquor by the drink is voted in, indeed, McMinnville won’t be the quaint little community we know. But guess what? Due to the inevitable evolution of our high-tech, fast-paced, self-serving world, McMinnville ceased being, years ago, the quaint little community we once knew. Sam Walton’s Super Wal-Mart’s replaced the more personal mom-and-pop stores on America’s Main Streets, and Japanese automobiles, getting 30 mpg and capable of 130 mph – at affordable prices, too – saw to it that four-lane highways replaced blacktops and gravel roads. As Bruce Springstein sings, “Glory days, [have passed us] by,” as have Toyotas and Nissans many American automobiles.
Regardless the availability or absence of liquor by the drink, those who desire to get intoxicated will do so, and those who desire to maintain sobriety will do so. As I related before, it’s a matter of having one too many as opposed to stopping one short of too many. I say yeah to liquor by the drink in McMinnville. Its nonexistence equates a mandate, no choice, which I feel is not fair, and its existence would equate a choice, which I feel is fair.
(Mike Vinson is a Warren County columnist. He can be reached at [email protected].)