Lubbock's 'spirits' may be lifted after vote on alcohol sale

Guardian:

Seventy-six years after America's "noble experiment" with prohibition was brought to an end with a flourish of Franklin Roosevelt's pen, pockets of the country have yet to catch up with the changing times.

Tomorrow the largest "dry" town in Texas will vote on whether its ban on the sale of wine, beer and spirits outside restaurants has lasted long enough. By all accounts, the population of 210,000 is evenly divided and the result too close to call.

Since the 1930s, the purchase of alcohol in shops and supermarkets has been prohibited in Lubbock and anyone wanting to buy a bottle to take home has had to drive about 40 minutes from the town centre to a collection of stores known as the Strip, where special dispensation has been granted.

Since 1972 the city has allowed wine and beer to be sold by the glass at restaurants and taverns, but the ban on over-the-counter sales remains.

Tomorrow's poll is the most prominent in Texas since the state made it easier to petition for an anti-prohibition vote in 2003. In that time almost 200 Texas communities have voted to legalise alcohol sales.

Other towns with votes pending, including Paris and Tyler, are watching events in Lubbock closely.

The debate in the flat, dusty home town of such musical luminaries as Buddy Holly and Natalie Maines, of the Dixie Chicks, has been heated but civilised. A group called Truth About Alcohol Sales has led the campaign to keep the town dry.

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I can't believe they left out Mack Davis who wrote Happiness is Lubbock Texas in My Rear View Mirror. It was not about people on the way to the Strip. I find it interesting that this story in a UK newspaper is the first I have seen of this election.