Local Lawyer Clarifies Alcohol Mess
By: Mitch Carr
Updated: September 3, 2009
Gerald Anderson is a Lubbock lawyer who has been dealing with alcohol sales issues for years. In 1972, he ran the local option election in Lubbock.
Back then, the county voted to allow alcohol sales in restaurants, The option to allow other forms of alcohol sales failed.
Anderson says that's when some false assumptions were made.
"From that did they infer that the voters of that precinct had adopted a dry status. That was an incorrect conclusion. If you want to prohibit an activity, then you have that prohibitory election. We have not had that," Anderson said.
Anderson says no evidence exists that the City of Lubbock ever voted to prohibit alcohol sales across the board. And for that matter, no evidence exists that any area in Lubbock County ever voted that way either.
"The county voters voted it in, and therefore, in the absence of an election to prohibit within the City of Lubbock, those areas in the city of lubbock then became wet," he said.
The protestants do have one more option. They could petition a district judge to review the certification given by the city secretary.
But anderson says that effort will likely fail.
"Their chances of being successful is not good because in this instance we had a county-wide election which passed by the voters 2 to 1. So her certification, that is the city secretary's certification, is correct," Anderson said.
