Oconee County, GA Politics

Fear mongering is a popular spectator sport in Oconee County. The county government is not going to start forcing people to buy beer at $1.00 a bottle with a plate of chips at various restaurants outside of the municipalities. The misinformation flying around about this argument is amazing as usual, but I must give the various components of the opposition to allowing people to order beer and wine with a meal credit for effective tactics in attempting to delay the inevitable. I was not living in Oconee County when beer was first made available in convenience stores in the mid 1980s I believe. I did drive out to Oconee County to some solitary cinder block shack somewhere off the old 441 back when I was a degenerate undergraduate earlier than that to buy beer on Sunday for the then outrageous amount of $10.00 for a 12-pack. People are going to drink no matter what you do. People will tailgate and dine at restaurants in various eating establishments, and if they want a beer or wine with th...

The scheduled vote for the pouring of beer and wine in restaurants will not be an April Fool's Day joke to some Oconee County residents as originally scheduled, it will be a week later

It won't be voted on the Oconee County Board of Commissioners until April Fool's Day, but the latest revisions of the proposed pouring license might work a little better for the county businesses

If you wish to have your Board of Commissioners members listen to your views about beer and wine in restaurants this evening, please go to this meeting this evening and do speak up about whether you think that Oconee County restaurants can handle beer and wine with meals like they have in the county seat of Watkinsville already.

I had the numbers wrong but the equation right as far as guessing where the various members of the Oconee County Board of Commissioners would vote in whether to allow restaurants outside of the municipalities the ability to pour beer and wine with meals. The standard calculus now goes with Horton and Hale voting no and Luke and Norris voting yes and Chairman Davis casting a tie breaking vote in the affirmative allowing restaurants to pour beer and wine with meals. I would not cast their votes in stone exactly yet, but we are supposed to see in April with an actual vote after the requisite public hearing and tweaking of the ordinance. I am somewhat surprised that the county-wide ordinance is less restrictive than the one working well in Watkinsville. There will be rampant rumor mongering and name calling between now and April. I will do my best to separate the fact from fiction from now until then.

The recent Oconee County Board of Commissioners vote to approve the Barnett Shoals Estates development on Barnett Shoals Road does not bode well for that tranquil corner of the county. This is an area where development has essentially escaped until recent attempts to cram a development on an area where Indians once gathered some 4,000 years ago. The BOC voted to ignore a private architect report on the possible potential historic significance and instead exponentially increase traffic in the area. A group of residents from Clarke, Oconee and Oglethorpe counties have come together to try and battle the development were successful in getting the Planning Commission to recommend denial, but the Board of Commissioners voted to approve with Chairman Melvin Davis making the tie-breaking vote . Commissioners Luke and Horton voted against it, Margaret Hale and Don Norris voted for it. I should have lobbied Hale and her husband harder at Uncle Floyd's car show last First Friday in Watkinsv...

Last night the Watkinsville City Council started the long process of considering the sale of beer and wine at the city's two or three stores. These sales, known as package sales, were introduced by council members John Walsh and Samantha Purcell. Immediately council members Brian Brodrick and Mike Link spoke out against the measure to allow a couple of convenience stores to sell beer and wine. Keep in mind it is already legal to buy beer and wine at stores outside the city limits of Watkinsville in Oconee County. This leaves city council member Joe Walter as the deciding vote on this contentious issue. There will be forthcoming workshops and public input at various, much like the process the city went through last year to decide to allow beer and wine sales in restaurants. I hope Walter supports the idea of Purcell and Walsh. Sam wants to attract a new grocery store to town. I am sure the local churches will be in opposition once again. Police Chief Lee O'Dillon said to me h...

I would bet a large percentage of the 500 people who signed the petition opposed to restaurants serving beer and wine in Oconee County have already eaten at one of the four restaurants in Watkinsville where it is already legal. Does this make them hypocrites? No, it would just make them patrons of Girasoles, Maison Bleu, Floyd's Grill or Gautreux's restaurants. The petition signers do not want the Oconee County Board of Commissioners to even consider whether or not restaurants may serve beer and wine to their customers. This is downright unconstitutional in terms of government responding to constituents business requests and suppressing popular support with a few hundred whiners not wanting wine and brew served to restaurant patrons in Oconee County, Georgia. This close minded effort recalls the opposite direction movement of the "Let Us Vote" stickered crowd when the County Commissioners would not consider a referendum for alcohol several years ago. This essentially...

I went to the Oconee County Board of Commissioners public input forum in Courtroom #1 Tuesday evening and was generally appalled at the scare tactics employed by the opponents to having glasses of beer and wine at restaurants outside of Watkinsville. The vast majority of the people in the back seemed to back the ordinance allowing beer and wine to served with meals at restaurants such as DePalma's and possibly a Loco's. People need to realize that it is expressly against the code of the state of Georgia to have a referendum on beer and wine in restaurants. Beer and wine have been served in Watkinsville for five months with no major problems yet. Yes someone will die from alcohol, whether it is served in Oglethorpe, Oconee or Clarke counties. Yes alcohol is evil, but so are taxes, which are necessary under our current form of government. Development is here, and we have to do the most we can to control it. Beer and wine will pass 3-2 sometime around August is my prediction.

I tried to pin down Melvin Davis about what date the Oconee County Board of Commissioners would have beer and wine in restaurants on the agenda, and it appears July is the date in question. Don Nelson does a good job of writing about it here.