Group plans blitz before alcohol vote

By Zsombor Peter
Staff Writer

GALLUP — Come Monday morning, McKinley County District Court Judge Joseph Rich could cancel Tuesday's "not before noon" liquor referendum.

But the Gallup Alcohol Action Team the local group urging voters to vote "yes" Tuesday for banning all alcohol sales within city limits before noon is planning a final blitz of door hangers and phone calls undeterred.

Lindsay Mapes, the Action Team's secretary, said the group's volunteers will be scouring the city distributing some 6,000 door hangers Saturday morning, targeting neighborhoods that have had the highest voter turnout rates in the past. Volunteers will also be calling registered voters Monday morning, focusing on the 500-plus qualified voters who signed the group's petition back in late 2005 and early 2006, confident most of them will vote yes.

The group has scrapped plans for an ad campaign, however.

"We decided to spend the money on other things, like door hangers," said Mapes, which take more effort, but have the benefit of engaging prospective voters more personally than an ad on the radio or in a newspaper.

The Gallup Hospitality Association, a group of representatives from the local food, restaurant and hotel industries, could be reached for comment.

While Action Team volunteers are busy making their calls Monday morning, lawyers for both the city and the Hospitality Association will be arguing over the referendum's fate.

The Hospitality Association filed suit in District Court March 9 in hopes of stopping the referendum, claiming it violates the state's Liquor Control Act. Rich, in turn, decided to call for a hearing just before election day.

It's anyone's guess what will happen Monday. Rich could deem the referendum legal and allow it to proceed, postpone either the referendum or the hearing, or cancel the referendum outright.

First, he'll have to decide if the Hospitality Association even has "legal standing," the right to file a lawsuit. According to City Attorney George Kozeliski, the association which has no formal structure cannot be sued, and so shouldn't be allowed to sue anyone else. The association, he said, plans to claim it has the right to represent its members.

The Hospitality Association's attorney, David Pederson, did not return The Independent's calls requesting comment.

If Rich decides the association has no standing, the case ends and the referendum proceeds. If he decides it does, he could postpone or even cancel election day.

Backed up by the New Mexico Alcohol and Gaming Division, the association believes the state's Liquor Control Act does not allow a municipality's voters to set their own hours for liquor sales citywide. By some interpretations, it only lets them ban Sunday sales by the drink or package Gallup voters have done both or make the municipality completely dry.

Kozeliski admits it's something of a "gray area" for the state's legal community, which is divided over the issue. No other community in the state, it seems, has ever tried anything exactly like this. Personally, he's confident the referendum is legal, and has advised the City Council to proceed until a court orders it to stop.

Assuming the Hospitality Association gets its "legal standing," Rich will have a chance to make that call Monday. Kozeliski said Alcohol and Gaming Division staff could be on hand to hear his decision.

Besides questioning the referendum's legality, critics say a pre-noon ban on alcohol sales will hurt the local economy by discouraging business, hurt the alcoholics the Action Team is aiming to help by driving them to more dangerous substances like "ocean," a mixture of water and hair spray, and create more business for bootleggers.

Advocates say it will do just the opposite in the long run, helping Gallup's economy by making it a nicer place to shop, visit and live.

They also expect the ban to cut down on the incidence of public intoxication. According to numbers from the Na'Nizhoozhi Center, the city's alcohol abuse treatment facility, protective custody pickups drop by approximately 75 percent on Sundays, when alcohol is not legally available within city limits (whether that 75 percent actually stops drinking on Sundays is another question). By City Manager Eric Honeyfield's estimates, all those pickups for the officers, vehicles and equipment cost Gallup $368,000 a year.

"And that's a conservative figure," he said.

Whether or not they believe a pre-noon ban on alcohol sales is a good idea, the referendum's boosters say Gallup's voters should at least get to decide if they want a ban for themselves. The Hospitality Association insists they don't have the right.