Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, February 2, 1991                   TAG: 9102020257
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By DAVID M. POOLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ROCKY MOUNT                                LENGTH: Medium

RESTAURATEURS SAY LAKE-LIQUOR BILL IS NOT FAIR/

That is what two restaurant owners - one who could benefit and another who stands to lose - say about a bill approved Friday by the House of Delegates.

The House revived the bill and passed it 49-46 one day after it killed the measure by one vote. It now goes to a Senate committee.

Proponents say they hope the measure will lead to mixed-drink sales in the two voting districts bordering Smith Mountain Lake - Gills Creek and Union Hall.

But some mixed-drink supporters say the bill would be unfair to restaurants outside the two districts.

James Arrington and Jerry Leonard operate restaurants across the highway from each other on U.S. 220, north of Rocky Mount.

But because their restaurants are in different voting districts, the bill could create a situation in which Arrington could sell mixed drinks while Leonard would be limited to beer and wine.

"It's just unfair," said Arrington, owner of Longwood Restaurant. "We could have it while the guy across the street didn't."

Jerry Leonard, owner of Jerry's Steakhouse and an organizer of a 1984 mixed-drink petition, said the General Assembly should not tinker with the law that lets voters have their say in a countywide referendum.

"It should be all or nothing," he said.

The bill, sponsored by Del. Clifton Woodrum, D-Roanoke, would allow for counties to hold referendums for individual voting districts.

Residents in the lake districts approved mixed drinks in 1988, but the measure was defeated countywide.

Woodrum's bill is the second legislative attempt to bring mixed drinks to the Franklin County side of Smith Mountain Lake since 1988. Last year, a Senate committee killed a bill that would have circumvented voters and allowed mixed drink sales within two miles of the lake's shoreline.

In debate Friday, Woodrum said his bill would still give voters a say in the matter.

But Del. Willard Finney, D-Rocky Mount, warned it would create an unworkable patchwork of drinking regulations in the county.

Del. Charles Hawkins, R-Chatham, said it appeared mixed-drink proponents would stop at nothing, even after failing to sneak it around voters through the "back door" last year.

"This year, they're trying the basement window," he said.

Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY