Precinct Wide Local Option Petition Overview
If you’ve determined a local liquor option election is necessary and decided the best way to pursue the election is through a precinct wide vote to allow any and all permit holders located in your precinct to benefit from the local liquor option question(s), the steps below will guide you through the filing of the local option petitions with your local board of elections.
Your local board of elections can provide you with the proper local option petition form, an up-to-date list of registered voters, precinct map, and the required number of signatures necessary to qualify the local option issue(s) for the next available ballot. Pursuing a question or questions which affect all permit holders or potential permit holders within a single precinct makes sense IF more than one business has decided to pool resources and attempt to gain the required privileges as a team. The outcome of the local liquor option questions included in Petition Process 1 will affect all businesses equally. Commercial developers oftentimes pursue local liquor options on a precinct wide basis to ensure the entirety of their development project is ‘wet’ for a variety of future tenants that are yet unnamed.
Precinct wide local liquor options are also used to stall commercial development projects by removing liquor sales privileges in otherwise wet areas, and also by neighbors wishing to “clean-up” their neighborhoods by voting to stop liquor sales at the corner carryout, state agency store, or neighborhood pub.