Seeking intellectual honesty in Lee County's wet-dry election debate

There's been surprisingly little said about the upcoming wet-dry elections scheduled for the City of Beattyville and all of Lee County, to be held in conjunction with the Nov. 5 general election.

To date, there have been no newspaper ads, no community forums, and very little discussion on social media. Local option elections often rip localities apart,with each side digging in on its viewpoints and arguing vehemently against the other side's positions.

That could still happen as we count down to the local balloting, but to date, what is usually a controversial issue has been remarkably quiet.

Thankfully, none of the outlandish predictions that have marked recent local option contests in nearby places have been made. There have been some crazy promises made in other communities. When Breathitt County voted wet a few years ago, a lot of people predicted that an Applebee's or other national chain restaurant would locate in Jackson. Obviously, that hasn't happened yet, and no one with any common sense thinks that it will. Yet a lot of people believed that it would happen.

Currently, Lee County sits as a dry island, surrounded by a sea of wet communities. We have direct highway access to four of our neighbors. All allow alcohol sales. Wolfe County went wet first, more than 25 years ago, followed by Owsley and Breathitt, and then the city of Irvine. Lee also borders Powell County, which is wet; and Jackson County, which remains dry; but there's no direct highway connection between Lee and those neighbors. You have to go through another county to get to one of those places.

The arguments in favor of voting wet are the typical ones. It would increase economic activity and give our restaurants and other attractions the means to compete with those in neighboring communities that allow alcohol sales. (There might be a good counter-argument that with all those other places selling booze, Lee County could market itself as a family-friendly environment, but no one's raised that talking point yet.)

Alcohol sales certainly wouldn't be a panacea for Lee County economically. Owsley County has been wet for several years now, yet it's still regarded as one of the poorest communities in the entire country. Being wet hasn't exactly brought boom times to our neighbor to the south. And local coffers aren't going to fill with taxes and licensing fees should either the city or county, or both, go wet. Anything collected locally has to be plowed back into enforcement of the governing ordinances the city or county would have to enact should voters choose to go wet.

Accurate predictions and reasonable promises are all we can ask from those who are supporting the endeavor. So far, no one's saying Applebee's or a similar chain is going to come to Beattyville. About the best argument I heard recently came from a friend who said, "I hope it goes wet. It sure can't hurt anything." That honesty is refreshing. They aren't promising or expecting restaurants to flock to open locations here. They just want to do something different than what's being done now.

Personally, my mind is not yet made up. I could go either way. I won't be buying alcohol if it's sold locally. Whatever drinking days I may have had are long distant in the rear-view mirror, and I'm not one of those who has to have a beer or a glass of wine with my meal. I'm aware of the potential societal costs to the community, as well as any possible benefits. How the two sides conduct themselves will go a long way in determining how I vote. I didn't really have a position in the recent debate concerning allowing all-terrain vehicles to use public roads, until those on one side of the proposal alienated me to the point of pushing me away from them and to the other side. If the pro-wet forces start making unrealistic promises or predictions about how much money the county's going to make, or how many businesses will locate here, then that's a sure-fire way to get me to vote to stay dry.

So, the honesty of the person who said, "It can't hurt anything," was good to hear. So, too, would be people simply saying, "I don't want to have to drive to the next county to get my booze, it would be more convenient to me to buy it here." Don't give us pie-in-the-sky arguments to justify something that would merely be more handy for you. I'd prefer not to have to drive to West Irvine to get something from Pizza Hut, but that's reality.

Maybe this issue will explode to the forefront of local conversation in the next two weeks. Perhaps it's just a ticking time bomb waiting to explode between now and Nov. 5. But for one who has seen lots of controversy and heated discussion erupt over this issue many times in the past, the seeming lack of interest seems odd indeed.