Early voting on alcohol issue starts Saturday

Early voting for the March 25 local option alcohol referendum begins Saturday at the Lincoln Parish Registrar of Voters office, located on the ground floor of the courthouse.

Voting hours are 8:30 a.m. until 6 p.m. through March 18, with exception of Sunday. Voters should bring their driver’s license or photo ID that shows their signature.

Primarily at issue is whether grocery stores should be able to sell a full line of packaged or bottled alcoholic beverages. Stores can currently sell alcoholic beverages with less than 6% alcohol content. That’s typically beer.

Brookshire’s, parent company of Super 1 Foods, and Walmart, are behind the move to expand sales.

What complicates the pending vote is a state law requiring all five Louisiana localoption possibilities to be on the ballot. Each option must be voted on separately.

If city voters want to keep the alcohol options already in effect, they must vote them back in again, plus decide on the high-content question, as well as another option that would allow bars in the city.

The last time Ruston held an alcohol referendum was in 2002. As a result of that vote, restaurants can now serve alcoholic beverages. Voters also reapproved propositions allowing low- content alcohol sales but rejected bars and high-content proposition that Brookshire’s and Walmart now want.