City Council votes to put Sunday Alcohol Sales on November ballot
By Melissa Rollins, Editor, editor@newsandpress.net
The November ballot will have a Sunday Alcohol Sales referendum on it for Darlington residents, thanks to a final reading on Ordinance 2017-23 during the June 6 Darlington City Council meeting.
Council members seemed reluctant to make a motion to pass the ordinance, or even to give a second once the motion had been made. Councilwoman Elaine Reed finally made a motion; councilman John Segars seconded the motion.
Before the motion passed, Mayor Gloria Hines reminded those in the audience that council members were not voting in favor of selling alcohol on Sundays, simply to put a referendum on the ballot and give citizens a chance to make that decisions for themselves.
“I don’t want this to be misunderstood,” Hines said. “We are not voting on this. We are voting so that the citizens of Darlington can vote on this.”
Reed expressed the thought that if people want to purchase alcohol on Sundays Darlington should benefit from that, not surrounding cities.
Ordinance 2017-23 reads: “That Mayor and Council of the City of Darlington wish to allow the following question to be placed before the citizens of the City of Darlington: ‘Shall the South Carolina Department of Revenue be authorized to issue temporary permits in the City of Darlington for a period not to exceed twenty-four hours to allow the possession, sale and consumption of alcoholic liquors by the drink to bona fide nonprofit organizations and business establishments authorized to be licensed for consumption-on-premises sales and to allow the sale of beer and wine at permitted locations without regard to the days or hours of sales?”
If the referendum on the Nov. 7, 2017 ballot is passed, the ordinance will go before council and must pass first and second reading before it will go into effect.
In other business, the newly crowned Miss Darlington and Miss Darlington Teen spoke to council about their platforms and what they will do during their time with the title to promote those platforms.
Miss Darlington, Sarah Floyd was first to speak.
“I am from Hartsville, South Carolina so I am not too far away,” Floyd said. “I am very excited. The pageant was a few weeks ago and we’ve already started getting things running. My platform is promoting the arts in our schools and communities. I play to go to Darlington Middle School, Darlington High School, Trinity-Byrnes, all of these schools that are in our county and city. I am hoping to get all of these kids excited about music and art. We have so many arts things around Darlington and we want to instill that in our kids, get them excited about it, get their parents excited about it because the arts aren’t something that are very appreciated these days…We have so much talent here in Darlington…and we really need to get our kids involved.”
Miss Darlington Teen Saviah Miller spoke next.
“I am from Florence, South Carolina and my platform is Read Across America: The Importance of Literacy,” Miller said. “I plan to show kids in Darlington how important reading is by going to schools and telling them how amazing reading can be and how it can bring you to another world. I love reading and I just want to share my love of reading with all of the students.”
Mayor Gloria Hines presented a Key to the City of Darlington to both Floyd and Miller.
Longtime City Judge Dan Causey also received a Key to the City, along with the thanks of Mayor Hines and several others for his service to the city.