Thursday, February 7, 2008

Liquor Sales in Wilmer is Good Money After Bad

Wilmer Public Citizen has nothing against the sale of liquor in our community.
However, the recent flyer promoting liquor sales to spur economic growth will only benefit the City employees and politicians - not to mention the gas/convenience store operators in town.

There's a flyer circulating about the town which proposes a petition to enable liquor sales, increase our tax revenues and "our quality of life". Given the current shambles of City of Wilmer's finances, the only thing new tax revenues will bring is more toys for city employees and an ego boost to a besieged city council. Folks, this is not really in our best interests. If you find it inconvenient to go out of town to buy your spirits, this isn't going to change a thing except for beer and wine sales. If you think that we've got any local restaurants just waiting to serve alcohol without having to be a private club, you're sadly mistaken. The state isn't going to allow alcoholic drink sales at the drive thru.

Bottom line here is that booze sales is a quick fix to get more revenue. The City of Wilmer has proven time and time again that they can't manage money. This new source of revenue will only give them more time and resources to continue to squandor your taxes. Do you think we'll be improving roads with this new money? Do you think we'll be getting a better more responsive Fire Department out of the deal? Adding alcohol sales could be a boon to a developing community, but not for Wilmer because our growth is all about big box business, not residential development ("roof tops"). The real estate sales growth quoted for this sector of the metroplex comes from the conversion of housing and farm land to commercial and industrial use.

No one wants to live here without basic amenities like food and drug stores, auto fixit shops and restaurants. Liquor sales won't bring in new residents. You don't presently have to go drink at a private club - there are several drinking establishments within a few feet of the city limits. Do you want to drink beer at home and it's an inconvenient drive to the package store? Think about making that drive with Wilmer PD hanging around just waiting to pull you over for DUI/DWI. Obviously, local liquor sales are not a problem if you want to drink. Package stores bring more crime and money - robbery, burgulary, theft - just to mention a few.

The bottom line here is drink if you wish but don't support the corruption machine by giving them yet another easy source of income to mismanage. Look at the city budgets, if you kept a checkbook like the city keeps its books, you'd be in jail. Why throw good money after bad?

1 comment:

Editor Publisher said...

Obviously, what we thought back in February wasn't really the case - all off premise liquor sales are up for approval. For an update see our three part investigative report in MAY.