DINING SPOTLIGHT

Hacienda On Henderson

Wanna do the Happy Dance?

Come by Mondays for Half-Price

Food from 5pm-10pm. Dine In Only. Open Daily 11am-2am. Late Night Menu. Catering Available. Lunch Menu 11am-3pm.

Divine Coffee Shop

Under new ownership! Come by and check out our new daily specials. Serving breakfast and lunch daily ‘til 2:00 pm. In October only, mention this ad for a 5¢ coffee with any breakfast.

ANGELO’S SPAGHETTI HOUSE

SUNDAY BRUNCH 11 am - 2:30 pm

$11.95 (Kids Under 10 Free with Adult Purchase)

$5 Bottomless Mimosas. Private Room Catering Free Delivery: 214.823.5050

Mextopia

New to the neighborhood ... Ricardo Avila’s Mextopia! Monday: $5

Margaritas, Tuesday: $2 Taco and Tecate, Lunch Specials M - F from 11am - 3pm. Brunch Sat. & Sun. from 11am - 3pm. Happy Hour M-F 3-7PM and all day Sunday. Easy parking!

Mexico Lindo

Come to the home of the Taco Truck & open the door to great tasting authentic Mexican food.

HAPPY HOUR

Mon-Thu 3-7pm Mon-Thu 9am-11pm Fri-Sat 9am-3am

Kush

Mediterranean Restaurant & Hookah Bar

NOW OPEN FOR LUNCH!

Mon-Sun 11am-2:30pm, Dinner 5pm-2am. Happy Hour Mon-Fri 5pm-9pm

La Calle Doce

Since 1981 La Calle Doce has been serving the Dallas area delicious seafood and Tex-Mex made with the freshest ingredients. Enjoy the rich culture of Coastal Mexico through our flavorful cuisine.

Szechwan Pavilion

Since 1980, we have offered the finest Chinese food in Dallas. Choose from our gourmet menu or convenient buffet.

does it take to get a drink in this neighborhood?

Navigating through 100 years of complicated laws is the current answer. After November, however, that may change.

Story by Jeff Siegel & Rachel Stone

Timeline of liquor laws in Texas

1843

Republic of Texas passes what may have been the first local-option measure in North America. This means each community in the state can decide its own liquor laws, setting the scene for 167 years of confusion.

1845

TEXAS LAW BANS SALOONS, BUT IS RARELY ENFORCEDAND IS REPEALED IN 1856.

1903

Local option voting takes most of North Texas dry, except for Dallas and Fort Worth.

1887 Prohibition amendment to Texas Constitution fails, and state remains “local option”: A county, city or justice of the peace precinct can vote wet or dry. This means that parts of the same county can have entirely different liquor laws.

1917 DALLAS VOTES DRY.

Illustration by Jynnette Neal

1919

TEXASADDS PROHIBITION AMENDMENTTO STATE CONSTITUTION.

1911 The only proper attitude for “any Christian man and thoughtful citizen,” said Texas Baptists, “was one of ceaseless and truceless hostility against the entire liquor oligarchy, local, county, state, and national, root and branch.”

1920 how important next month’s wet-dry election is in Dallas’ social and cultural history. It’s not only the biggest wet-dry election in U.S. history since the end of Prohibition, but it’s also a landmark moment in Dallas. Since before Prohibition — for almost 100 years — most of Dallas has been dry in one form or another. It has been as much a part of Dallas as 100-degree days and the Cowboys.

FEDERALPROHIBITION BEGINS.

In this, our wet-dry boundaries affected everyone. In dry areas, of course, residents have had to drive across town to buy a bottle of wine or a six-pack and couldn’t even order a drink in a restaurant until 1971. Even today, the private club limitations in dry areas that went into affect in 1971 make it more difficult to order liquor in Oak Cliff and North Dallas than in Lakewood. And even residents in wet areas feel the difference. If you live in a wet part of town that borders a dry area, you witness the Friday night flight to the liquor stores that guard the border.

All of this could change next month. If voters approve the two issues on the ballot, every restaurant in the city, regardless of wet-dry status, will be able to sell beer, wine and spirits without the private club paperwork, and retailers with the appropriate state licenses will be able to sell beer and wine.

In this month’s magazine, we look at the history of Dallas’ wet-dry status, our unique (and often frustrating) liquor laws, the role religion has played in keeping Dallas dry, and what it will mean to our neighborhood if voters approve both issues.

1929

Colliers magazine reports that Dallas, despite Prohibition, is wide open — reporter Owen P. White bought liquor in six places in a twoblock stretch of downtown, and there were more than a hundred others in the city. city

1935 Two years after federal Prohibition is repealed, Texas voters repeal state prohibition. Local option returns; areas that were wet before Prohibition are wet again. In Dallas, only Oak Cliff, with beer sales, is wet.

1940

The town of Preston Hollow (not yet annexed by Dallas) votes dry, 97 to 49.

1944

DALLAS COUNTY VOTES WET, 47,343 TO 23,540.

2010

DALLAS’ WET-DRY ELECTION GOES TO THETEXAS SUPREMECOURT, WHICH WILL DECIDEWHETHER THERE ARE ENOUGH VALID SIGNATURES TO HOLD THE REFERENDUM. IF THERE ARE, IT WILL GO TO VOTERS IN NOVEMBER.

1956 Oak Cliff votes dry, 17,123 to 15,403, and remains dry after elections in 1957 and 1960 fail to reverse its status.

1971

VOTERS APPROVE LIQUOR BY THE DRINK IN A TEXAS-WIDE REFERENDUM. FOR THE FIRST TIME IN TEXAS HISTORY, RESTAURANT PATRONS WILL BE ALLOWED TO BUY COCKTAILS.

1976: Addison votes wet, 242-70 in one of the first successful wet-dry elections in Dallas County since Prohibition. In this, it is the beginning of the end of the dry laws that had dominated Dallas for more than century. Most of the city’s suburbs would follow suit, in some form or another, over the next two decades.

2004: votes wet for retail beer and wine sales (6,197 to 3,173) and for alcohol sales 6,759 to 2,595).

How long has liquor been a political debate?

Wet-dry has always beencontroversial in Texas. In 1887, a leading anti-Prohibitionist, R.Q. Mills, accused the media of bias in its reporting of the wet side during the fight over adding a Prohibition amendment to the state constitution: “The Prohibitionists had a monopoly with our reporting,” and he said the media who had criticized his position were guilty of fraud.

Andin1920,prominentDallasphysician Dr. CurticeRosserexchangedletterswithhisfriend William Jennings Bryan, the thrice-failed Democratic presidentialcandidate,aboutthemostimportant issues in the upcoming presidential election. They agreed it would be war profiteering, the ratification of theTreaty of Versailles (that ended World War I) and Prohibition.

Did Dallasites make moonshine?

Stillsandcorn liquorarenotjusthillbilly doings. In 1936, reported a Dallas newspaper, police raided a still in the “North Dallas Negro district” near what is todayColeandLemmon. Theyseized950gallonsof mash, but the still’s operators escaped — even though thenewspaper reportedthat thepolicehad stakedoutthe house for most of the night.

Sort of. Back in ’85, the area surroundingSwissAvenue and the Munger Place Historic District was still a real estate wildwest.Thehouseswere shaping up, but the neighborhood was rough.

Abandoffourteenagers had killed three people at random in East Dallas that spring. A rapist was on the loose. Dallas had the highest crime rate among the nation’s 20 largest cities in 1985, and the city’s crime rate would remain among the worst for years to come.

Much of that was blamed on drugs and alcohol.

In 1987, the Dallas City Council tried to curb alcohol sales in a 13-square-mile area that included Fair Park and South Dallas. A zoning ordinance created to targetthatarea,whichwashometo some 350 package stores and bars at the time, would effectively ban liquor sales within 300 feet of a residence.

InOldEastDallas,seedytaverns encroachedonresidentialneighborhoods, and residents tried to use the sameordinancetodryupthearea boundedbyCentralExpressway, Richard, Live Oak, Glasgow, Peak and theSantaFeRailroad.SouthDallas liquormerchantssuedthecityover theordinancein1990.Theyargued the state’s liquor laws, which the Texas AlcoholicBeverageCommission enforces, supersede local laws.

In1993,theTexasSupremeCourt agreed with the liquor merchants, which put an end to the ordinance and Old East Dallas’ efforts to get dry.

When neighbors recently created a vision for the future of Garland Road, alcohol sales weren’t part of the equation.

The wet-dry petition arose suddenly and gained steam quickly. So the possibility that legal restrictions on alcohol sales could be lifted wasn’t even on the radar when the Garland Road Vision committee wrapped up its recommendations this past spring.

And it’s unlikely that it will be added to the conversation before the recommendations make it to City Hall this fall.

But many agree that making the Casa Linda area wet could serve it well. “Wetting up” the area could encourage new restaurant business, and it could alleviate the congregation of liquor stores near the White Rock Lake spillway, where our neighborhood changes from dry to wet.

“That has always been a negative in my mind, the line being there at Winsted and Garland Road,” says Gerald Worrall, who serves on the Garland Road Vision committee. “And that area now is the target of potential development activities, especially with the Santa Fe Trail coming in there.”

If voters in November approve alcohol sales at grocery and convenience stores, it could eventually help eliminate that cluster of stores that sell beer and wine, GarlandRoad Vision advocates say.

GloriaTarpley, who served on the GarlandRoad committee until her recent appointment to the City Plan Commission, says the wet-dry election has been somewhat under the radar in her neighborhood, Forest Hills. The city’s budget woes top the minds of most people, she says.

Beer, wine and drinks by the glass already are legal in Casa Linda area restaurants that operate under the private club loophole.

“I’m not sure it’s going to change that much,”Tarpley says. “You can go to Chili’s inCasa Linda and get a margarita.”

But the change could bring new busi- ness to the Casa Linda area because it would eliminate the club-membership model, which forces business owners to run their food and liquor operations as if they were two separate businesses.

Proponents of the wet initiative say club memberships effectively are a $10,000-$20,000 annual tax on business owners whose real estate happens to fall in dry areas.

Under state law, liquor distributors such as BenE. Keith are prohibited from delivering to restaurants in dry areas. So restaurants serving alcohol under the club membership model must purchase and pick up their alcohol from ClassB retail warehouses, which charge about 11 percent more than wholesale distributors, says Matt Spillers, owner of Eno’s restaurant in Oak Cliff’s Bishop Arts District. That adds labor and transportation costs, including vehicles, insurance and fuel. Plus, the Texas Alcoholic BeverageCommission charges extra fees to restaurants operating as private clubs, and private clubs must keep separate books for food and alcohol sales.

Only so much of that added cost can be passed onto consumers. So restaurant owners in dry areas are less likely to profit from alcohol sales than their competitors in wet areas a few miles away.

“I would almost say I would never open another restaurant in a dry area,” says Matt Spillers, who owns Eno’s in Oak Cliff and is a vocal proponent of the change (although this fall he is opening a new Bishop Arts restaurant, Oddfellows, with nine investors).

The change would make it easier for restaurants in Casa Linda to profit and serve customers, says Craig Perry of AmReit, the real estate company that ownsCasa Linda Plaza.

“There’s a potential to attract some stores that we don’t currently have,” Perry says. “We really feel that’s up to the voters, and we’ll see what happens in November.”

How

Distributor buys alcohol from the manufacturer (It’s illegal, with one exception for Texas wine, for consumers, retailers or restaurants to buy alcohol from the manufacturer)

What’s

B retailers”?

Texas’Class B system dates to 1971, as a companion to a law allowing restaurants and bars to sell liquor by the drink. Before that, no restaurant in Texas was allowed to sell liquor — even in wet areas (although they could sell beer and wine). Customers brought their booze with them from home, and the restaurant sold them setups — mixers, juices and the like.

This

The reason for the law? Retailers who thought liquor by the drink would cost them sales successfully lobbied state legislators, who gave them a monopoly on selling liquor to restaurants, bars and private clubs (restaurants that serve liquor in the state’s dry areas). Retailers said they would lose business because consumers would stop buying liquor at their stores to bring to restaurants. So the legislature agreed to give them the monopoly to make up for the lost sales.

Retailers who sell liquor to restaurants and private clubs are called Class B retailers, after the name of the license they obtain. They include some of the state’s best-known retailers, including Sigel’s and Goody Goody in the Dallas area. Texas is one of three states — Kansas and South Carolina are the others — with four tiers of distribution: manufacturer, distributor, retailer and restaurant.The other 47 just have three — manufacturer, distributor and restaurant.

According to this 1971 state law, every restaurant in Texas, whether it’s in a wet or dry area, must purchase liquor from a Class B retailer. The November election would not change this law; it would simply eliminate private clubs in Dallas and make every restaurant a restaurant, in terms of how it can purchase and sell alcohol.

The difference between private clubs and restaurants is that liquor can be delivered to restaurants in wet areas, whereas private club restaurants in dry areas must travel to a Class B retailer’s warehouse to pick up liquor — Sigel’s is near Harry Hines and Preston, and Goody Goody’s is in Addison, for example. Private clubs must also buy their beer and wine, but not liquor, from ClassB retailers, while restaurants in wet areas can buy beer and wine directly from the distributors. Class B retailers also buy their beer and wine from distributors, which translates to a markup when the retailers sell it to private clubs.

What does this mean for consumers? Typically, but not always, they’ll pay more for alcohol in a private club. The extra tier adds cost to the product, and restaurants usually pass that onto their customers. >>

How do Texans outside of Dallas like their liquor?

Alcohol has never been especially popular with Texans. When Prohibition began in 1919, 199 of the 254 counties were dry; 43 were practically dry, including Dallas County. Even today, according to the Texas AlcoholicBeverageCommission, 29 of the 254 counties are still dry, and only 43 are completely wet.

It could be worse … what if the state owned our liquor stores?

Abc

In 18 states (and one county)intheU.S., thestateownsthe liquorstores.These arecalledcontrol states,andthough therearedifferences in how eachstate defines control (some statesallowprivate retailers to sell wine or beer, for example), the result is that what is for sale is controlled by the state.

ThisisalegacyofProhibition;the political compromise that made repeal possible allowed each state to pass its own liquor laws.

Pennsylvaniahastakencontrolone step further. Currently, grocery stores in Pennsylvania can’t sell wine. Instead, the state liquor authorities have installed wine vending machines, from which the customer can buy wine, similar to buying a soft drink or a candy bar from a vendingmachine.Similar,butwitha couple of exceptions.

The consumer puts his or her driver’slicenseintothemachine,where ageinformationonthebarcodeis processed. The photo on the driver’s license is matched with a video image of the buyer at the kiosk, and a state liquor board employee monitors each transaction to confirm that the video of the buyer matches the driver’s license.

How is it that Dallas County is dry yet parts of Dallas are wet?

VOTES WET, 47,343 TO 23,540.

DALLAS

The basis for Texas’ wet-dry laws is local option, which does what it says: Local voters can decide whether to sell alcohol in their locality. It’s one of the cornerstones of the Texas liquor system, says Lou Bright, former general counsel for theTexas Alcoholic BeverageCommission.

“The priority is that local voters always have the final say, and can’t be forced to change their local preference by someone from outside their locality,” Bright says. “This doesn’t mean that it’s not confusing or can’t be ambiguous, but that’s always the principle.”

How confusing? Consider what happened in 2006, when a group of North Dallas and Lake Highlands residents tried to schedule a wet-dry election for their respective sections of the city. TheTexas Supreme Court ruled that the wet-dry election couldn’t be held because the election was designated for the current Justice of the Peace precinct boundaries, when it should have been designated for the boundaries established in 1877, when the area went dry.

State law defines localities three ways and uses the principle that the larger locality, such as a city, can’t force a smaller locality, such as a JP precinct, to change its behavior: precincts, but legal and administrative divisions within a county. One JP precinct can be dry, while the one next to it in the same city or county can be wet. Interestingly, Dallas’ wet-dry boundaries don’t follow the current JP lines, but older, less-welldefined JP boundaries. turned wet in a citywide election unless all of the precinct is within the city. This was one of the issues in the run-up to the November election, when there was some doubt as to whether the JP precinct in Oak Cliff that went dry in 1956 was contained within the city of Dallas. Turns out it was.

When Lubbock voted wet in 2009, the drys claimed that part of the county was dry from previous elections, and that a city-wide election couldn’t affect those areas — which included part of Lubbock. Their argument failed in court.>>

by gaetano donizetti

Is most of Dallas still dry for religious reasons?

Religious groups have traditionally taken the lead in fighting wet-dry elections in Texas, and they played a key role 50 years ago when Oak Cliff went dry. But there doesn’t seem to be much organized religious opposition to November’s two wet-dry ballot issues.

Does this mean that neighborhood churches don’t care about the issue any more? Or that Dallas is less religious than it used to be?

No on both counts, several religious leaders say. It’s not so much that alcohol isn’t important; rather, it’s that other issues have become more important, and abstinence isn’t the issue it once was. In addition, Dallas has changed significantly from the smaller, predominantly mainstream Protestant city of the 1960s and 1970s to a million-plus population urban center that includes more Catholics, Jews and non-denominational Protestants — all of whom are less concerned about alcohol.

“We’re just getting to this point later than other cities,” says George Mason, pastor at the moderate Wilshire BaptistChurch. “The city is more diverse, and we have more people who have different attitudes about this subject.”

Also, says Rev. Tim McLemore of SMU, alcohol is no longer the good vs. evil issue that it has traditionally been among the mainline Protestant groups that have been in the forefront of the U.S. temperance movement. Mason says this is even true for some conservative Baptists.

“We have knowledge about the benefits of the limited use of alcohol that we didn’t have 100 years ago,” says McLemore, who notes that the United Methodists have changed their views to allow “judicious use” of alcohol. “So we’re less inclined to take a black and white view.”

Finally, churches have less influence over their members than they did two and three decades ago. Times were, Mason says, if the church said not to drink, believers didn’t drink. These days, that veto power is largely gone.

READ MORE about alcohol laws and religion in Jeff Siegel’s Last Word column on page 80.

Cosmetic And Family Dentistry

“It’s not just about the teeth, but the whole person. Seeing someone’s oral health improve means their total health has improved as well. The focus at our White Rock Lake cosmetic dentistry practice is on comprehensive dental care.” Let us help you make a difference in your life!

WWW.DRDENAROBINSON.COM

8940 GARLAND RD., SUITE 200, DALLAS, TX 75218 214.321.6441

Optometrist

Dr. Clint Meyer www.dallaseyeworks.com

Your Passport to the best vision in the world, Maui Jim Passport Sunglasses. Up to $100 off! Unmatched clarity in the widest field of view possible. Maui Jim’s exclusive lens design with Polarized Plus 2, fabricated with digital precision, means a wider, clearer and more vivid view without glare or harmful UV. Come in today and start seeing better!

DALLAS EYEWORKS

9225 GARLAND ROAD SUITE 2120, DALLAS, TX 75218 214.660.9830

200,000+ READERS WITH AN AVERAGE INCOME OF $141,000

Dr. Dunagin and the other board-certified physicians at Wade-Huebner Clinic are committed to providing advanced medical care while adhering to traditional doctor-patient values. We treat most acute and chronic illnesses and focus on prevention by offering wellness and preventive examinations. We are on the medical staff at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, and we strive to make our patients’ experience a rewarding one that leads to better health and well-being.

Comprehensive Dentistry

Ashly R.

DDS, PA

Dr Cothern is one of a small distinguished percentage of dentists who have invested in postgraduate training at one of the world’s premiere continuing education institutes, The Pankey Institute for Advanced Dental Education. We care about you as a unique individual and examine you in a way that together we can understand every aspect of your oral health. In our office we love what we do. NOW THAT IS SOMETHING TO SMILE ABOUT!

What am I actually voting on?

Dallas voters will decide two issues in November’s wet-dry election:

2. Whether to allow the sale of beer and wine, but not spirits, at retailers throughout the entirecity.Currently,only one-third of Dallas — roughly WhiteRock Lake to Irving and downtown to Walnut Hill — is wet for retail sales.

1. Whether to eliminate the private club regulation for restaurants that sell alcohol in dry areas. The private club rule, in place since 1971, requires restaurants to admit customers into the restaurant’s club so they can buy alcohol. It also requires the restaurant to keep a paper trail of club members.

FOR INFORMATION VISITDALCOELECTIONS.ORG.

Neither issue is dependent on the other. Voters can elect to allow retail sales but keep the private club restrictions, or vice versa.

If the Texas Supreme Court decides there are enough signatures to hold the referendum, the election will be held Nov. 2. Registration to be eligible to vote in the election ends Oct. 4. Early voting runs Oct. 18-29.