Signs along North Little Rock’s John F. Kennedy Boulevard tout a Nov. 12 special election as being about “Revitalization and Jobs,” staying away from the central voting question of whether to allow the sale of liquor by the drink in historic Park Hill.
Early voting for six former voting districts along JFK Boulevard (Arkansas 107) will be Tuesday through Friday. Voting hours will be 10 a.m.-5 p.m. in the Laman Library at 2801 Orange St. in North Little Rock, and 8 a.m.-5 p.m. in the Pulaski County Regional Building at 501 W. Markham St. in Little Rock.
There will be four polling sites open Nov. 12.
Voters in each district will decide the issue independently of the others.
The supporters’ campaign, led by the North Little Rock Chamber of Commerce, focuses on revitalization and jobs because enticing higher-end restaurants to locate along the city thoroughfare starts with lifting the area’s “dry” status, said Steve Winchester of the Park Hill Merchants and Business Association.
“This is the way we look at it here,” said Winchester, owner of Winchester Plaza at 3508 JFK Blvd. “This whole issue, we believe, is quite frankly about economic growth and making Park Hill a viable option for businesses moving into North Little Rock.
“We think it will create jobs and hopefully revitalize this neighborhood that’s really done nothing but diminish in the last 10 years with no businesses coming in,” he added. “There was a time when Park Hill had a thriving grocery store. Without this passage of this historical vote, we won’t have that chance either.”
Chamber of Commerce President Terry Hartwick, who has been leading the Park Hill effort, agreed, saying that Park Hill could become the same type of area as Little Rock’s upscale Hillcrest neighborhood. The chamber put out the “Vote for Revitalization and Jobs” signs, he said.
“It is about that to me,” Hartwick said. “I was over in Hillcrest the other day, and it’s very vibrant, with a lot of people working there and people showing up there. Even at 3 or 4 in the afternoon, people are somewhere there eating, buying a beer. Even on the side streets in Hillcrest you have quaint little restaurants.”
No organized opposition to the wet-dry issue in Park Hill has materialized, even with four churches within the voting area. In supporters’ favor, Hartwick has said, is that voter approval wouldn’t allow liquor stores in the area, only liquor by the drink.
A spokesman for Park Hill Baptist Church at 201 E. C Ave., the oldest and largest of the four churches in the election area, said Friday that its church leaders didn’t want to comment about the election. Park Hill Baptist Church began in 1947, the year after Park Hill was annexed by North Little Rock.
“I talked to a lot of them [church officials] individually,” Hartwick said. “I asked ‘Are you mad at me?’ and they said ‘No, Terry, we’re not mad.’ They understand there’s a changing of times and that there’s not going to be liquor stores. It’s just about restaurants.”
The Park Hill Neighborhood Association hasn’t taken a position in the election, said Stephanie Minyard, the group’s president, instead relying on educating its members on the issue.
“We’re definitely remaining neutral,” Minyard said. “I haven’t heard any negatives. … I have a feeling there will be a good early turnout on this with people making sure they aren’t busy at work to vote on Election Day.”
The special election differs from others by being in a restricted area - the only dry pocket within an otherwise wet city - and involving the now-defunct voting districts 4D, 4E, 4K, 4M, 4P and 4Q. Those districts are basically along either side of JFK Boulevard from just north of Interstate 40, with the northernmost point part of Randolph Road. (4K starts one block east of JFK.) The “defunct” districts include what is now part of the Lakewood and Indian Hills areas.
Alcohol sales have been prohibited in the area since 1966, when voters in those districts approved the ban. Once an area votes itself dry, that decision can be reversed only by a vote within the same areas.
Elections in 1978 and 1980 trying to overturn the ban failed, with later attempts “chasing dead people,” as Hartwick once said, because of multiple, overlapping voter registration addresses and changes in voting boundaries since the 1960s.
This year, the Arkansas Legislature passed Act 1018 to establish a process to identify former precinct boundaries during elections in which voters approved alcohol bans, including a requirement for 38 percent of current registered voters of a district to sign petitions calling for an election.
One other defunct district, 158, isn’t included in the Nov. 12 election, Hartwick said, because there aren’t any commercial properties in that area and it is the farthest away from JFK.
With each district deciding for itself, alcohol sales could end up being allowed on one side of JFK but not the other, or they could skip a section.
“We could have one pass and five fail or five pass and one fail,” Hartwick said.
Overturning the alcohol ban “would put Park Hill on a level playing field with the rest of the city,” Hartwick said, because business owners looking to relocate and shoppers can be turned off of the area when they have to go to another part of the city to have a drink with a meal.
“We want what’s fair. That’s why we went through the process to get this to a vote,” Winchester said. “We won’t know if having alcohol by the drink will boost the economy here until we try it, but we do know that without it we are at a standstill.”
Arkansas, Pages 15 on 11/03/2013