Will Prohibition End?

Tomorrow, November 9, 2010, in the year or our Lord, Picayune city residents will be able to cast a vote to partially end prohibition in the city limits of our fair city.  The vote will be to grant "resort" status in the city limits of Picayune.  This will allow "by the glass" alcohol to be served in eating establishments and hotels that have social events will be able to serve alcohol without threat of being busted by the fuzz.  This has been a long time coming and everyone who knows me knows where I stand on this issue but there are a few things that I would like to discuss that will go against what many who support this change use as an arguement.

The first thing I don't like to hear is that we'll finally have "good" restaurants in town.  First of all, I know the owners of a couple of my favorite restaurants in town and they are "good" restaurants.  If they weren't, I wouldn't eat there.  If this passes, believe me, we will not see a flood of big chain restaurants coming to Picayune in the beginning.  And if one more person uses Applebee's as the type of restaurant that we want here, I will punch them in the face.  Can we at least aim a little higher than that?  Geesh.  Standards, people, standards.  In all reality, chances are it will take quite a while for a big chain to come here simply because we don't have the population to support it but what it will do is allow existing restaurants to serve alcohol.  And maybe if we're lucky, some wonderful person that really knows about cow and how to cook a decent steak will open a quaint little steakhouse and I can have a glass of Merlot with my cut of beef.

What the "resort" status will do is bring in more sales tax to increase our dwindling tax base.  As that tax base keeps decreasing, your personal property taxes WILL go up.  Your elected officials know this and yet none of them will grow a pair (women included) and support this issue.  The Chamber of Commerce is another group that needs to get off it's tail and pick a side too but you won't see that happen, either. If you look at Flowood, MS, in the year since they have passed the "resort" bill for that area, they have seen a 3% to 5% increase in sales tax revenue.  There has NOT, I repeat NOT been an increase in DUI's and public drunkeness and they haven't had to hire more officers (which I've heard repeatedly from opponents of this issue say)with the exception of one officer to enforce the codes.  I didn't look this info up myself, I'll give credit where credit is due, Jeremy Pittari at the Picayune Item wrote this in his Sunday article about the vote.  When Flowood put this up to a vote, the Chamber of Commerce, City Council and business owners were behind it.  Why, you may ask?  Because they knew it's what was best for their city.  Business owners here are scared to do it for fear that the "churchee's" will boycot their business and elected officials are scared to support it because they may lose some votes next election.  And with that, I will address the sect of the population that uses religion as a reason for wanting to keep prohibition alive and kicking in the 21st century.

I have always found it odd that one of the quotes from the Bible that is most used is "Judge not, lest ye be judged", and yet the people that seem to judge the most are the ones that are contantly spouting out scripture and sitting on the front row of church on Sunday morning.  I'm not singling out any one denomination because they're ALL guilty.  Here's what I don't understand...if I'm with a person that doesn't drink because of whatever system of beliefs they're going with that week, I would never think to say, "I'm having a drink so you have to, as well."  And yet, those who don't drink expect those who enjoy the occassional libation to abide by their beliefs.  It's so hypocritical and to be quite honest, you're being an a**hole.  How many times have you been to a respectable eating establishment and witnessed a person falling over in their plate because they've drank too much at the bar (and I'm not talking to the people that witnessed quite a little show at Augie's Glass Garden for prom 1991 and I'm also not referring to myself in that 1991 reference)? 

What I'm trying to say is this...if I have enough respect for you not to force you to have a drink when you're with me and participate in my way of life, then please stop trying to make me participate in your way of life.  Let's do something that will only have positive effects on the economic downturn this city has taken.  Don't you want to see schools get a little more money?  Don't you want to see roads get repaired?  Don't you want to create jobs?  Don't you want your tithes increase due to people having said jobs?  It's a common sense thing, people, so in the words of Spike Lee, "Do the right thing.".