Council to set date for vote on alcohol

By Zsombor Peter
Staff Writer

GALLUP — City voters should know by the end of Tuesday evening's City Council meeting when they'll get to decide if local liquor dealers should be allowed to continue to sell alcohol before noon.

The council was forced to set a date for the "not-before-noon" referendum after the Gallup Alcohol Action Team, a local non-profit, handed in just enough signatures late last year to trigger the vote. The group, formed to alleviate public intoxication and irresponsible liquor sales in Gallup, took up the challenge after finding out that the council was legally barred from restricting liquor sale hours on its own.

With a public school district bond election in February and the primaries this summer and state rules that prohibit a referendum within 42 days of either City Clerk Patricia Holland expects the council to set a date some time in late March or early April.

Whatever the date, City Manager Eric Honeyfield expects a contentious vote.

"When it comes to alcohol in Gallup, there's no fence riders," he said. "People in Gallup, they're either for liquor or against it."

A referendum also depends on whether a legal challenge arrives between now and the date the council sets. According to City Attorney George Kozeliski, there's some question about whether such a referendum can take on the hours of alcohol sales at all. By some interpretations of state statutes, he said, it can only ask voters to ban sales on Sundays already the case in Gallup or make the city completely dry.

A challenge before referendum day, Honeyfield said, could potentially postpone a vote.

The Gallup Alcohol Action Team hopes that a pre-noon ban on alcohol sales will cut down on the number of intoxicated people who roam the city's streets and the problems that accompany them. Some critics fear the ban will only drive the most alcohol dependent of them to more dangerous substances such "ocean," a mixture of water and hair spray.

Setting a date for the referendum is not the only liquor-related issue on the council's agenda for the evening. It's also scheduled to have its first look at a new ordinance being proposed by Councilman Bill Nechero to reshape the future of alcohol sales downtown. It's in response the Mayor Bob Rosebrough's efforts last summer to change the way the American Bar the bane, in his view, of downtown Gallup does business. Nechero considered the mayor's recommendations too punitive and has suggested less severe alternatives.

Downtown Gallup is also on the council's agenda in respect to Gallup MainStreet, the local branch of a national program that strives to help cities restore the economic vitality of their downtowns.

The council last month agreed to pay half the $50,000 the group thinks it will need to operate the first year, but only if the group could collect the first $10,000 from the local business community. The group set itself the deadline of Jan. 10 to come up with the money.

The bulk of the money would go toward the salary and benefits of a part-time paid staffer, printing and copying, and advertising.

The council meeting begins at 7 p.m. inside City Hall.