RAINER'S RAMBLINGS
The vote
By RAINER ARNOLD

The people who did not want liquor by the drink in restaurants, or beer or wine by the glass, won the battle last Tuesday. They brought out enough votes to win. The vote was close. Less than 50 votes separated the winners from the losers. And, already I have heard things like "voter fraud" and "recount."

First, I doubt that there was "voter fraud." There might be a recount, you never know.

But I know one thing. There are people saying things about the fact that if everyone voting for liquor the referendum would have passed. Well, the facts are the facts. They did not and this is what democracy is all about. The majority won and they will have their way.

Whether you agree or not is beside the point. More people voted against the liquor being sold in restaurants than not. Thus, the people have spoken.

Anything else is just sour grapes. According to general rules of thought, there can be another call for liquor to be sold in a few years. Then it will be tested again by the voters.

Before this election by the people, there have been other instances on similar issues. Many years ago in Dawson County, not too far from here, a similar situation took place. The referendum was voted down just like here. The first time it lost by hundreds of votes. The second time it lost by, I think, 12 votes. The third time it passed by a large margin. They now have national restaurant chains and are growing by leaps and bounds.

Maybe in a few years the people of Union County will have decided that they want to grow by leaps and bounds with the coming on off these national restaurant chains. On the other hand, maybe the people of Union County will decide they want to keep their small town atmosphere. One never knows the outcome beforehand.

However, one thing is pretty certain, there are always going to be people who move here because of the beauty and serenity of our mountain areas and then they will want to make it more like where they came from. But, that is what people do. We shall see what the voters do the next time around, if there is a next time.