Voters OK alcohol sales in NLR’s Park Hill area

For the first time in almost 50 years, alcohol sales will be returning to North Little Rock’s Park Hill neighborhood.

All six former Park Hill voting districts resurrected for a special election Tuesday had voters overwhelmingly approve allowing alcohol sales that supporters said will at long last entice high-end restaurants and other businesses to locate in Park Hill and along a 2½-mile stretch of John F. Kennedy Boulevard now void of liquor sales.

“The people in Park Hill and its surrounding areas have said it’s time for a change,” said Terry Hartwick, the president of North Little Rock’s Chamber of Commerce who led the effort to overturn the ban on alcohol put into place by voters in a November 1966 election. “I can see economic development coming from this. Revitalization and jobs, that’s what this is about.”

Unofficial results from each of the six voting districts were:

District 4M For....................................119 Against ............................. 15

District 4E For....................................114 Against ............................ 24

District 4D For....................................155 Against .............................25

District 4Q For. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .74 Against . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

District 4P For. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52 Against . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

District 4K For. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .93 Against . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

The ban on alcohol sales in 1966 left residents in Park Hill - and what is now part of Lakewood and Indian Hills - as the only “dry” pocket in North Little Rock.

No organized opposition ever materialized, though unsigned fliers circulated last week argued against overturning the alcohol ban.

“This is the start of a new era of prosperity for Park Hill,” said Steve Winchester, the president of the Park Hill Merchants and Business Association. “It won’t happen quickly. I believe it’s a process.”

The voting districts, generally along either side of John F. Kennedy Boulevard (Arkansas 107), are defunct but were able to be revived under a new state law created to let current voters decide the wet-dry issue. Overturning the ban could only be done by holding an election by registered voters living within the same voting districts in which the ban had been approved in 1966.

Each district voted independently on whether to overturn the alcohol ban.

The uniqueness of the special election did cause confusion at the four polling locations because of the district boundaries that had to be redrawn just for Tuesday’s vote, leading to reports of some voters being turned away. Even parts of longtime streets within the Historic Park Hill District were excluded from the eligible areas.

“I live on the wrong side of Magnolia Street, the west side, and couldn’t vote,” said Cary Tyson, referring to one boundary line. “My neighbors across the street could vote.

“The old districts were outdated,” Tyson said, adding that he supported the change. “That’s one more reason why this had to happen. Now it’s the responsibility of us as neighbors to recruit local independent retailers to come here. I don’t think anybody is looking for a Chili’s or anything like that.”

Several voters who were turned away when they went to the wrong polling location or didn’t live in an eligible area vented their frustration in phone calls to the chamber, Hartwick said.

“Everybody was kind of blaming us,” Hartwick said. “It was confusing. I don’t think it would change anything [the outcome].”

Maps of the boundaries used were publicized by the chamber, made available on the Pulaski County Election Commission website and on a Facebook page supporting the change, published in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette four times and displayed at some Park Hill businesses.

“You do what you can to explain it to them,” Hartwick said.

The chamber printed up signs that were placed along John F. Kennedy Boulevard promoting “revitalization and jobs” if the measure were approved because high-end restaurants would be more interested in locating in Park Hill, Hartwick said. Liquor stores will still be prohibited in the area though convenience stores and gas stations will be able to sell beer and wine.

“Having restaurants up here brings prosperity, it really does,” said Winchester, the president of the neighborhood’s merchants association.

Elizabeth McMullen, owner of E’s Bistro in the Lakehill Center, 3812 John F. Kennedy Blvd., said that overturning the ban will bring her more competition but also more business for her restaurant, and more employees, because increasing the choices will mean more people coming into Park Hill.

“I think it will help tremendously,” she said. “It will bring new restaurants into the area. And that will help us.”

Park Hill elections in 1978 and 1980 upheld the prohibition. Later attempts to overturn the ban encountered problems because of changes in voting boundaries and with voter registration addresses that overlapped or no longer existed, hurting petition efforts to call an election.

Act 1018, passed by the state Legislature in the spring, made the election possible by establishing a process to identify defunct voting precinct boundaries that existed during elections in which voters approved alcohol bans. The new law included a requirement for 38 percent for current registered voters within a now-defunct voting district to sign petitions calling for an election. Petitions were submitted during the summer and certified by the Pulaski County Election Commission.