© 2024 KASU
Your Connection to Music, News, Arts and Views for 65 Years
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

More signatures needed in Craighead County on alcohol ballot initiative

The group that is wanting alcohol sales to be legal in Craighead County needs more signatures to get the initiative on the November ballot.  Our Community, Our Dollars has been asking Craighead County residents to sign petitions, and the group turned in 21-thousand-180 signatures to the Craighead County Clerk’s Office.  Of that number, about five thousand signatures were thrown out.  County Clerk Kade Holliday says the group needs to collect three thousand-810 signatures and have them turned in to the county clerk’s office by five p.m. on July 31st.  One of the opponents of legalizing alcohol sales is Jason Willett of Craighead PRIDE.

“Here in Craighead County, we have a unique setup of restaurants that allow alcohol to be served.  We don’t see the reason to have to have liquor stores in the county, so we formed Craighead PRIDE to help educate the voters, and have that open discussion about what we see as a great quality of life in Jonesboro and Craighead County”.

Willett tells why his group is so opposed to making Craighead County wet.

“The conversations we have been having with residents across the county have been about how Jonesboro has achieved such remarkable growth over the last 25 to 30 years.  We have a Chamber of Commerce that is very progressive that works to build our community.  We have good infrastructure and we have a great industrial park and businesses and we have a great quality of life.  When you look at our religious communities, our education system, Arkansas State University, and everything else, we have had the success without being wet”.

While KASU news has not heard back from Our Community, Our Dollars, director of the group Jay Allen tells the Sun Newspaper he is confident his group will get the needed signatures statewide to meet the July 31st deadline.

Johnathan Reaves is the News Director for KASU Public Radio. As part of an Air Force Family, he moved to Arkansas from Minot, North Dakota in 1986. He was first bitten by the radio bug after he graduated from Gosnell High School in 1992. While working on his undergraduate degree, he worked at KOSE, a small 1,000 watt AM commercial station in Osceola, Arkansas. Upon graduation from Arkansas State University in 1996 with a degree in Radio-Television Broadcast News, he decided that he wanted to stay in radio news. He moved to Stuttgart, Arkansas and worked for East Arkansas Broadcasters as news director and was there for 16 years.