A well- organized campaign to legalize the sale of alcoholic beverages in the town of Falkville bit the dust on Tuesday as “no” votes outnumbered “yes” votes by a majority of 90.
The election was conducted on a special ballot apart from the Republican and Democratic Primary ballots.
The final tally showed 246 voters opposing the legal sale of alcoholic beverages while 156 voted in favor of the proposed change. Of the vote total, 50 ballots were voted absentee and of those only two voted “yes.” The town has about 600 registered voters.
Leading the “vote no” campaign was a broad cross-section of citizens who used yard signs, emails and telephone calls to get their message across. Local churches were instrumental in helping to finance and promote the effort.
There’s never been a harder fought campaign in this town,” said Mayor Jimmie Walker, who was against the proposed change.
The mayor said he counted the number of  “Vote No” and “Vote Yes” signs in yards over town the week before the election and found that the “Vote No” signs outnumbered the “Vote Yes” signs by about three to one. He predicted the outcome of the election would favor “No” voters by a margin of 60 percent to 40 percent. The final tally was 62 percent against to 38 percent for going wet.