AFC Newsletter Summer 2025

Dear Friend:

I am running late with this newsletter so it will be somewhat short. Nevertheless, the information is important for the people of Arkansas, especially for those in dry counties who have tried to keep alcohol as far away from their communities as possible to avoid the carnage of alcohol use. I have possibly shared some of this information in past newsletters. However, it was far enough back that some of our readers may not have seen it. Also, we all seem to need to have things refreshed in our minds from time to time, especially important information. And, this is very important because it involves the very basis of our freedom, the right to vote and have that vote recognized as legitimate. And, it clearly has not been when it comes to this particular subject of alcohol. Before I get into that topic I want to update you on some of the things we have been doing. As I mentioned in the last newsletter, we now have a podcast. We have done about ten or more podcasts so far. These can be watched on YouTube under the name “Sobering Truths.”

We have also begun to develop a website. We hope to have that available in about a month. We are excited about this potential because we can share so much more of our information in a more economical and accessible fashion. Since we are planning to reach the nation with our efforts to bring attention to the alcohol problems, we believe the website will help us facilitate that outreach much quicker. We had a website in the past but due to circumstances beyond our control, we lost the domain. So, we are very happy to have this new website.

Two-part article on illegitimacy of private clubs

The following is the first part of a two part article on the reason the people of Arkansas cannot have dry counties in spite of the fact that they have voted them dry. The will and vote of the people of Arkansas has been usurped by illegitimate laws, unelected bureaucrats, and city councils that seemingly couldn’t care less about what the people they are elected to represent want.

ARE PRIVATE CLUBS THAT SELL ALCOHOL IN DRY COUNTIES ILLEGITIMATE?

After Prohibition ended in 1933, all states gained the power to regulate alcohol within their borders. Almost two thirds of the states adopted some form of local control over the selling of alcohol.

Arkansas was one of those. In 1942, the people of Arkansas, through Initiated ACT1, gave all Arkansas counties the right to decide whether to be wet or dry. 58% of Arkansas counties, about 43, voted to be dry.

In 1969, Governor Winthrop Rockefellar thought being able to sell alcohol in dry counties would help promote tourism in Arkansas so he introduced ACT132, the Private Club law. Since this act would be changing an initiated act of the people, it required a super majority vote to pass the legislature. However, it failed to pass the Senate by three votes. However, Governor Rockefellar signed it into law just as if it did get enough votes. That lack of sufficient votes should have made that law null and void. ACT132 was illegitimate.

So, ACT132 was accepted as law and private clubs were allowed to exist in dry counties to sell alcohol contrary to the vote of the people. Initiated ACT I (1942), which gave the people the right to keep their counties alcohol free, is completely ignored by ACT132. The will and vote of the people did not matter.

Because of its illegitimacy, ACT132 was challenged in court twice. The first time was by the residents of Boone Co. in 1977. The Arkansas Supreme Court dismissed this case by a 4 to 3 vote. By the vote of one man (a judge) this law was determined to be legal. Basically one man overruled the will of the people.

The Act was again challenged in 1983 by the people of Lawrence County. This case was also dismissed by a 4 to 3 vote by the Arkansas Supreme Court. Again, it was upheld as being law, another case of the will and vote of the people being overridden by one man. A rehearing for that case was denied June 20, 1988.

While the majority opinion determines the outcome of a case, there is also the dissenting opinion. Here is what the dissenting judges asserted in this case:

"The majority (judges) tries to finesse the tough question and that is what about the liquor dispensed by these clubs to guests, who are either given a drink or pay for it. Such a practice clearly violates the law, and it is a general practice in all the clubs. Every time a guest is served, the law is violated. The majority has no answer to this question except to say it cannot read the law that way, while it does read that way.

"There is no doubt private clubs can exist, and possession and consumption of intoxicating liquors are not prohibited, but sales are.

...The facts are that all the clubs violate the law in letter and in spirit. The clubs sell their "members" drinks. So what we have are a multitude of clubs that exist that sell intoxicating liquor in violation of Initiated Act I."

The dissenting judges concluded, "I would reverse the trial judge and hold that, on the facts developed, Initiated Act I is being violated by private clubs."

Two former Prosecuting Attorneys agreed with dissenting judges

Former prosecutor Brent Davis, while he was prosecutor, stated in a Jonesboro Sun guest editorial:

"How can one law provide for a county's voters to choose to make it illegal to sell alcohol and yet another law create an agency (the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board) with the authority to issue permits allowing private clubs to sell alcohol in a "dry" county? The simple answer is it can't. Or, at least it can't if what a private club does is sell alcohol.

"Regardless of how the General Assembly may want to characterize such a transaction, it is a sale or purchase of alcohol under any common sense definition. The reason the legislature defined this as something other than the sale of alcohol is because they could not legislatively legalize the sale of alcohol in a county which had voted to be dry"

Former prosecutor Scott Ellington, while he was prosecutor, said this in a letter to the ABC Board in opposition to a permit request:\

"The law allowing for the issuance of these permits is premised on the distinction between "dispensing" alcohol for money (which is presumably legal) and selling alcohol for money (which is clearly illegal). Such a distinction is, in my opinion, an effort to create an imaginary distinction to avoid the impact of the clear letter of the law - which is that alcohol cannot be sold in a county voted "dry". Even the proponents for allowing the issuance of such permits, would not argue with a straight face that the very reason such permits are sought is to obtain the right to sell alcohol in a "dry" county, and for certain people to have the right to buy it. My position is therefore based on my refusal to condone such blatant hypocrisy."

It is clear that these private clubs are selling alcohol contrary to the wishes and votes of the people. Even though the original clubs created under Rockefeller’s ACT132 were legitimate private clubs, they still did not have the authority to override the vote of the people by selling alcohol.

In part two in our next newsletter we will expose an even more blatant attempt to override the will and vote of the people by a bogus interpretation of a law passed in 2003. This bastardization of that law has resulted in our dry counties being flooded with alcohol by unelected bureaucrats and elected officials who couldn’t care less about the rights of the people.