Push To Expand Frisco Liquor Laws Looks To May, Not November
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FRISCO (CBS 11 NEWS) - Activists wanting to bring package stores to Frisco say voters will decide the issue, but not as soon as they had first hoped.
City officials stood by ready to receive signatures as late as 5 p.m. Friday, but organizers of the effort say they decided to let that deadline to make the November ballot pass, so they can focus on a May election.
They've only been gathering signatures since the end of June, but already members of the Frisco Committee For Economic Growth say they've gathered about 9,000 of the nearly 10,000 signatures needed to force an election. Supporters argue that Frisco is losing out on big business by making some alcohol legal in parts of the city but not others, with packaged liquor sales forbidden completely.
Carrie Stewart wants to see the ban lifted. "Because I think it brings in more money into Frisco instead of sending it out to The Colony and other outlying areas. We might as well be getting that."
But others, like Mei Jiang, say expanding liquor laws is a bad idea for Frisco's family-friendly culture. Jiang said, "Frisco is a place with a lot of young families, like in our neighborhood we have a bunch of young kids, so we prefer to keep it the way it is right now."
In order to call a November election, signatures would have had to be turned in by the end of business Friday. Organizers say they may have enough signatures already, but they don't believe they have enough of a cushion of extra signatures to take the risk.
"That's fine. It just means the difference between us having a November election or a May election. It isn't a matter of if we're going to have an election, it's just when," the group's leader, John Hatch said.
Petitioners actually have another month to legally gather signatures, and they say at this rate they're confident they'll have enough by the middle of next week. That's when they'll start planning for an election in May.
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