Act 39 revisions loosen regulations for alcohol referendums in dry municipalities
Claysville borough manager Susanne Dorsey points to the meeting minutes from 1934 showing when the municipality prohibited alcohol.
Terry George PGA golf pro emeritus at Lone Pine Golf Club, is also the mayor of the 20-person borough formed so that alcohol could be served there.
Randy Liebig, general manager at Lone Pine Golf Club, pours a beer in the grille room.
The American Legion post is the only place in Claysville to get a beer and it is open only to members.
When Gov. Tom Wolf signed into law in June revisions to Act 39 to allow grocers to sell wine, amendments were also added further opening the opportunity for citizens in “dry” communities to decide if their municipalities should become “wet,” or allow the sale of alcohol.
The provisions take effect Aug. 8. And on that date, citizens can gather a petition of signatures submitted directly to a county election office to have a ballot referendum on whether to become dry, wet or something in between that could allow sales of certain alcohol at specific locations like veterans’ clubs. There are 21 municipalities considered dry in Washington and Greene counties as of July 2015, according to LCB data.
“Under the old version of Act 39, you had to wait until an odd-numbered election year and the ballot referendum had to appear on the primary election ballot. As of Aug. 8, it can appear on any election ballot,” said Liquor Control Board spokesman Shawn Kelly.
The direct submission of a petition means a municipal government doesn’t have to vote on whether a ballot vote allowing or prohibiting alcohol would make it as a referendum. That hasn’t changed under Act 39 and it’s one of the few instances power is afforded directly to citizens in terms of voicing their preference for availability of booze sales. According to the law, a petition must contain the signatures of at least 25 percent of people represented by the highest vote cast for any electable position in the previous election – that could be the president, council representative, supervisor or other official position.
“The particulars matter in the wording. The petition must be submitted with very specific language, as to whether to go completely dry, completely wet or to allow specific types of alcohol sales or the ballot item won’t pass regardless,” Kelly said.
Such is the case with Claysville Borough. Claysville Council didn’t have anything before it, yet citizens lobbied in 2007 to allow an ultimately successful vote to permit alcohol sales at the Claysville American Legion post. The license can never be transferred from that location or to a private owner. By March 2008, according to Councilwoman Patricia Brown, taps were flowing with draft beer.
“They’re so good for the community. They volunteer for kids, senior citizens’ organizations and nursing homes. So that was an important thing for them to help sustain themselves after being selfless for so long,” said borough manager Susanne Dorsey.
Claysville is one of 684 municipalities in Pennsylvania considered at least partially dry. None of the municipalities’ officials said they were aware of any initiatives to further prohibit or open up sale of alcohol.
Nearly all municipalities in the two counties considered dry acted quickly to resume prohibition on retail sale of liquor and beer after federal Prohibition ran from 1920 until its repeal in 1933. Most municipalities enacted their own local prohibitions the very next year.
Gray Township in Greene County waited until 1997 to do so, and Washington Township waited until 1999. But one municipality took novel and relatively radical action in 1977 in order to sell alcohol: secession.
Green Hills is a roughly square-mile borough of 20 people that is an island within South Franklin Township. The Lone Pine Golf Club takes up a majority of the nearly 625 acres in the borough that voted to split from the township after a failed vote to allow alcohol.
“The referendum to allow alcohol failed terribly. Nearly 80 percent of the township voted against it,” said Terry George, mayor of the borough and part of the management team at Lone Pine. His and others’ families that run the golf course live on or near the green space.
“Champion, Pa., which is the place for Seven Springs, led the charge for us a couple years earlier. No country club or golf course can survive without a liquor license.
“But after we did, lawmakers changed it where you had to have a population of 500 or more to secede from a municipality; otherwise I think you’d have a lot of Green Hills-style boroughs out there,” George chuckled.