Wet or Dry? Alcohol vote gets heated

MADISON COUNTY, Ark. (KNWA) - Voters heading to the polls in Madison County, Arkansas today will decide whether to allow alcohol sales in their county for the first time in 66 years.

"I don't think it makes any sense for the county to stay dry," Bob Barton, President of Keep the Money in Madison County, argues.

"Everything will change drastically if this county goes wet," Dianna Edmonson, spokesperson for Citizens to Keep Madison County Safe, counters.

"Citizens to Keep Madison County Safe" published an ad in the Madison County Record newspaper with a depiction of the devil saying "Those who drink belong to me."

"They're only tactic so far has been to try and scare people into not participating in the petition campaign or to scare them into voting the way that they want to," Barton says.

Edmonson said it's a healthy fear.

"People need to see this in their face of what happens and they need to see the fatality and they need to understand the destruction that come with alcohol," she says.

A wrecked car has been towed around the county with the slogan "Your future with alcohol."

Barton says the types of accidents in the picture, will happen more if the county stays dry.

"It's just requiring people to drive more miles to get their alcohol and if they're going to drive more, there's going to be more wrecks," he predicts.

Safety is an issue on the opposing side as well.

"Murder and rape and robbery and vandalism, all of that goes up in a wet county," Edmonson claims.

Edmonson says serious crimes are 106-percent more likely to occur in a wet county.

"It's still a source of revenue and we can hardly afford to ignore it," Barton says.