I have never written a letter to the editor before but I feel after reading so much overblown articles as to the benefits of Madison County voting yes to go wet and legalizing sale of liquor, I have been in Madison County through one of these votes before and also attempted vote several years ago. The earlier vote was no and I took a stand against legalized liquor sales and still do.
I spent 16 years as a Florida trooper in Madison County, followed by being elected sheriff for 28 years and have seen my share of drunks and families being killed and buying liquor when their children went hungry. No one can convince me availability does not make more problems for law enforcement and broken families.
You have heard about the economy. The only people who to benefit from the sale of liquor are the businesses that sell it. We know that it has cost thousands of dollars to promote this election to go wet.
The benefit will come to those businesses because of more drinking because of availability.
I can attest to the fact that DUIs will double and law enforcement will have to be increased. As far as the taxes to Madison County, the taxes derived from taxes in Madison County, the tax rate in Florida is divided 67 ways throughout the state of Florida. The idea of restaurants coming to Madison, such as Ruby Tuesday’s and Olive Garden, these have to have metropolitan numbers to come to a town. I can attest to many advantages to vote no, but to vote yes,
I cannot think of any advantage it would be to Madison County. Please vote no if no other reason we won’t make it readily available to our children and the citizens of the county.
Former Sheriff Joe Peavy
