A petition to force a referendum allowing alcohol sales in Lamar County is making the rounds at several businesses, including at least two grocery stores.
Tables are set up near the checkouts at Ramey’s Marketplace stores in the Lumberton and Purvis. A Sumrall Ramey’s would not confirm that the petition was available there.
A Hattiesburg resident, who asked to remain anonymous, is helping coordinate the petition drive, saying several people have spoken up about alcohol sales.
“I’m helping facilitate the desire of a lot of people,” he said. “People ought to be able to vote on whether a place can sell alcohol. There are a lot of reasons to pass the referendum. There are more pros than cons.”
The Hub City resident said the last vote to change Lamar County from a “dry” county was 2000, when only 40 percent voted for the referendum.
“In the past 18 years, there have been a lot of changes and we’ve got a lot more younger people here,” he said, citing a safety issue. “People who want to have a drink are going to have one, and they’ll drive to get one.”
The unnamed person said the group coordinating the petition is loosely based.
“There are a group of people that are interested,” he said. “We don’t have a lead spokesman.”
To place a referendum on a ballot, 20 percent of Lamar County’s voting population of about 33,000 are required to sign a petition. The approximately 6,600 signatures then would need to be verified by the Lamar County Circuit Clerk’s Office.
Circuit Clerk Martin Hankins said Tuesday he had not received any petitions.
“There is a process that a petition has to go through to become a referendum,” he said. “They have to be verified in our office, which is going to take our office a lot of time.”
