Johnson County bid on alcohol faces suit

A group opposing the effort to allow alcohol sales in Johnson County has filed a lawsuit challenging the certification of petitions to put the question on the county's general election ballot.

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A hearing on the lawsuit filed by the Stand Strong Stay Dry Be Safe Committee and five Johnson County residents has been scheduled for 9 a.m. Wednesday in Johnson County Circuit Court before Judge William Pearson.

Circuit Court documents show the challenge was filed Aug. 19 by the committee that waged a campaign opposing the election. County residents Aaron Davis, Casey Hardin, Michael Troup and Elva Hampton also were named as plaintiffs with the committee.

In its organizational statement with the Arkansas Ethics Commission, the Stand Strong Stay Dry Be Safe Committee listed its chairman and treasurer as Charles Bosley of Lamar. Bosley is the owner of Blackwell Liquor at 10 Fish Lake Road in Conway County.

The committee listed its purpose as opposing a ballot question to allow alcohol sales in Johnson County.

Blackwell Liquor also was listed in 2014 as the location for the Conway County Legal Beverage Association that a spokesman said earlier this year was a group of Conway County liquor store owners that opposed the Johnson County alcohol-sales petition drive to protect their business interests.

The lawsuit named County Clerk Michelle Frost as the defendant.

On Aug. 10, Frost's office certified 5,441 signatures on petitions submitted by Keep Our Dollars in Johnson County, the group that sponsored the petition drive, to qualify the liquor sales question for the Nov. 8 ballot.

According to Arkansas law, the group had to submit 5,428 signatures to qualify the question for the ballot, or 38 percent of county voters as of June 1.

The lawsuit, filed for the Stand Strong committee and county residents by the StreettLaw Firm of Russellville, stated the petitions represented "the most drastic series of violations of the local option rules in the history of this state as characterized by innumerable instances of alleged canvasser fraud, ethics violations, local option rule violations and outright forgery."

The Stand Strong and county resident plaintiffs want Pearson to reverse the petitions' certification and stop the county election commission from placing the issue on the ballot.

The lawsuit said, among other things, that the group violated rules on petition filing, ethics and disclosure. It cited violations by the paid canvassers in obtaining signatures on the petitions, out-of-county residents' signatures being counted by the clerk and forged signatures.

The Keep Our Dollars in Johnson County group hired Blueprint Action of Denver to conduct the petition drive and paid the company with donations from Wal-Mart Inc., which has given money to liquor sales petition drives in several counties.

Pearson entered an order Thursday that allowed Keep Our Dollars in Johnson County to intervene in the case. He set a court date for 3 p.m. Monday in Clarksville to hear arguments opposing the order.

Attorneys for Keep Our Dollars in Johnson County, Mitchell Williams Selig Gates and Woodyard of Little Rock, filed their answer to the lawsuit Thursday. In addition to denying any violations of petition signature gathering rules, the group said the clerk improperly rejected "tens or hundreds" of signatures that should be counted.

The number of signatures the clerk certified surpassed the number required by only 13.

The group asked that Pearson review the petition to determine if valid signatures were improperly rejected. But if the evidence shows the petition contains signatures of more than 38 percent of county registered voters, Keep Our Dollars in Johnson County asked him to uphold the sufficiency of Frost's certification.

State Desk on 08/27/2016

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