A ‘dry’ town gets its first taste of alcohol sales : Hoboken, Ga., officials say beer and wine will boost tax revenues. Opponents say the cost is too high.

It had been a long time, about 50 years, some say, since folks around here could buy brew legally.

Hoboken, a town of some 400 people, nestled in the piney woods of south Georgia, was July-dry, although its neighbors were wet. Drinkers grumbled some, but they put up with the situation until they recently got a little help from a bad situation: The town needed tax money.

So, officials here turned to a proven money-raiser--wine and beer sales, hoping that a tax on the sales would bolster Hoboken’s $150,000 annual budget. “We thought we could get enough revenue to keep (other) taxes down,” explained Linda Martin, the town clerk.

That remains to be seen. But already it is clear that going wet has wreaked profound changes on this little community. It did not, of course, go gentle into the wet world. The issue of whether to allow alcohol sales pit neighbor against neighbor, Baptist against Baptist and drinker against nondrinker.

During contentious City Council meetings, arguments raged not only over the evils of alcohol but over the philosophy of governing and whether the council members remembered whatthey had been taught in their high school government classes. In the end, an ordinance passed 4 to 3 (the mayor broke a 3-3 council tie) allowing beer and wine sales to begin in June. But no drinking is allowed on the premises.

Strong feelings remain on both sides. Nevertheless, Hoboken, now like a million other little towns across America, has a convenience store where you can dash for gas and beer in one stop. Jack’s Country Mall was granted the first license to sell alcohol. On the little store’s sales counter is a familiar sign: “Without pictured ID, this is a dry store.”

“I’m glad it’s wet,” Charles Moore said the other day as he and his buddy, Jesse Trull, headed for their pickup after picking up a couple of bottles of beer. “We were rooting for them to get a license.”

Some people liked Hoboken dry because it made the town special, quaint, keeping some connection with the past and, they thought, offering a shield against the oppressive, crime-ridden present.

Cheryl Stevens vows to campaign against the mayor and City Council in hopes of getting the wet ordinance repealed.

The new law is “a tragedy,” said Stevens, a kindergarten teacher. “Look at our nation. The No. 1 problem is alcohol abuse.” Moreover, she complained that when her three children attend Hoboken Baptist Church and go to Jack’s Country Mall, which is nearby, they can’t buy treats without confronting alcohol.

“It’s not necessary to have bubble gum and beer side by side,” Stevens said.

Still, Nelson Clark, who is half of the town’s police force, said there has been “no difference” in crime or litter since sales began in June. “Not selling it hadn’t stopped one person from drinking” because they simply bought drinks in neighboring towns, he said.

Only two of Georgia’s 159 counties--Echols and Union--are completely dry, although some jurisdictions in the wet counties remain dry, as did the old Hoboken within Brantley County.

“There are still some rural areas that are influenced by the Bible Belt mentality and think it’s a sin to drink,” said Lyn Paddrik, executive director of the Georgia Beer Wholesalers Assn.

The association, in low-key fashion, reminds these areas that the sales they eschew are slurped up elsewhere. Paddrik noted that Atlanta gained $7.6 million in beer taxes last year. And, just east of here, the town of Nahunta, Ga., took in $15,845.

At just over a third Nahunta’s size, Hoboken cannot expect to do so well. “We don’t have any idea what it’s going to bring in,” said Martin, the town clerk.

And having seen the furor ignited by the beer and wine ordinance, Martin said: “We’re not messing with hard liquor.”

That’s all right with Jack’s Country Mall. Store manager Janice O’Neal reports that under the new ordinance, the place is “doing good. Sales have doubled. When they come in to buy the beer, they buy everything else.”