Booze, Freedom, Jobs and Heroes

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Dr. Malcolm Cross
Dr. Malcolm Cross

Recently, The Flash Today reported the Stephenville City Council had tabled a request for a special use permit requested by a local businessman so he could convert the old bus station into a restaurant.  The official reason given was to provide more time to study potential parking problems.  Yet the decision raises the possibility that other issues may be involved as well—issues that have preoccupied the city council for years.

One issue is alcohol—apparently the owners of the prospective restaurant will want to serve alcohol with meals.  This issue was especially time-consuming in my first five years on the council, which  fielded numerous similar requests from restauranteurs seeking to boost sales by offering customers the opportunity to buy alcohol with their meals.

When such proposals came before the council, some of my colleagues rejected them simply because they thought alcohol to be bad, insofar as it may lead to drunkenness.  Others, I suspect, may have been cowed by religious zealots.  Still others expressed no opinion about booze, yet voted to reject such requests, citing parking issues, the proximity to schools, etc.  I frequently questioned the logic, but never the sincerity, of those who stands contrary to my own.

I personally don’t drink.  But I believe the government should be very cautious about regulating the behavior of adults, and should do little more than simply preventing adults from hurting each other, or children.  More regulations than that, however well-meaning in purpose or beneficial in result, may raise questions about the status of individual freedom in Stephenville. 

Therefore, I’ve never thought the government should suppress the right of other adults to buy, sell, or drink alcohol, given that it’s a legal product.  In fact, when I was on the city council, I always defended the right of restauranteurs to offer, and adult customers to buy, beer or wine with their meals.  Moreover, in 2008 I debated and voted in favor of allowing the sale of beer and wine in Erath County.  And today I’m concerned that the denial of this special use permit may signify the revival of attempts to regulate adult behavior, and thereby reduce freedom.

Moreover, I’m concerned with what the denial of the permit may indicate about Stephenville’s economic development strategy.  I’ve frequently argued that much of the current policy—creating SEDA, diverting money away from traditional government activities so that it can be used to aid favored businesses, etc.—is flawed, and that government should instead follow a strategy of simplifying regulations, leveling the playing field to prohibit favoritism or discrimination, but otherwise allowing all legal businesses to form and compete with each other.  But the city council, having given a tax break to one prospective restaurant, is now creating a setback to another prospective restaurant’s efforts to establish itself.

I’m told that the concern over parking is real, that the matter will be studied, and that the special use permit will soon be granted so that the new restaurant in question can get underway.  I certainly hope this proves correct.  Those who are trying to establish are working in accordance with the best principles of American free enterprise.   If successful, they will prove to be true heroes in the battle to create more jobs, more wealth, and more economic development for Stephenville.

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