Only one of the 51 metro Atlanta jurisdictions holding alcohol referendums Tuesday said no to seven days of beer, wine and liquor store sales, but it wasn't Forest Park as previously thought.
It turns out the Clayton County city's machines were counting while impaired. An accumulator programmed to tally votes cast on touch-screen machines spat out grossly erroneous results, Elections Superintendent David Painter said.
A recount will be conducted Thursday at City Hall, but the new unofficial count has Sunday sales passing 369-331.
That leaves the small city of Palmetto, in south Fulton County, as the only metro-area jurisdiction to turn down retail alcohol sales on Sundays. Statewide, the measure made possible by state legislation putting control in local hands had an 82 percent success rate among at least 127 cities and counties, according to data compiled by the Georgia Food Industry Association.
Those who held off on referendums and those who rejected the measure might change their minds when sales tax dollars start slipping off to adjoining cities and counties, said Jay Hibbard, vice president of government relations for the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States.
"We've always looked at it and said that the decision by the local community is the right one for them," he said. "It may be that within the next year they'll be revisiting it."
Most places where Sunday sales failed were in North or South Georgia, including Albany, Americus, Brunswick, Fort Oglethorpe, Waycross and Whitfield County.
In metro Atlanta, the high rate of approval came as no surprise, as no opposition movement materialized. Many jurisdictions declined to put the issue on the ballot because they didn't want to bear the cost of a single-issue ballot.
Cobb County, for example, declined to spend up to $400,000 on a November election, but the County Commission voted Tuesday to hold a Sunday sales referendum during the March 6 primary. Marietta is expected to do the same.
Three cities within Cobb -- Acworth, Kennesaw and Smyrna -- approved Sunday sales Tuesday.
Several DeKalb County commissioners said Tuesday that they’re also leaning toward a March vote, which will save $330,000 as opposed to having held it Tuesday.
“The way the law is written, we would have had to pay the entire cost of the election,” Commissioner Jeff Rader said. “And there is no evidence we’d get more on sales than we do in paying for the election.”
Nine DeKalb cities, including Avondale Estates, Decatur, Dunwoody and Stone Mountain, approved Sunday sales.
Palmetto's results seem contradictory because the city of 4,500 rejected package sales but at the same time narrowly approved Sunday sales by the drink.
It makes no sense to Roy Jones, owner of DJ's Grocery on Main Street. He now faces losing business to Newnan and Union City, which approved Sunday sales, rather than seeing a weekend revenue bump.
"It seems a little bit of a conflict to be able to buy at a bar at twice the price, then you drive drunk," Jones said, "but you can't buy it at a convenience store on your way home at a fraction of the price."
Voters must have been confused by the separate alcohol questions, he said, and the fact that they had to go to two polling locations -- one for city elections, another for the county -- didn't help.
"You'll probably see one or two stores closing down over this a year or so from now," said Doug Cho, a manager at Palmetto Package Store.
Forest Park's turnaround disappointed Mayor Corine Deyton.
"It's hard for me to believe," she said. "I'm a Christian, I teach Sunday school and I never have drank alcohol my whole life. That's people's business if they want to do that."
Painter said he realized something was wrong when he got home Tuesday night and saw that the results would mean nearly 1,500 ballots had been cast, when the true number was closer to 700.
The city had set up computer technology support Tuesday night, but the contractor didn't show. Painter said the city won't be paying the technician's $1,200 fee.
The machine errors did not change the results of two contested City Council races. The winners remain Linda Lord and Latresa Akins.
Staff writers April Hunt and Janel Davis contributed to this article.
About the Author
