By DAVE HAMRICK
Staff Writer

The liquor question may be on Fayetteville's Nov. 2 election ballot after all.

“We're going to see if we can push it through,” said local Realtor Lane Brown, who has been working for almost five years to complete a petition drive to force a referendum on liquor by the drink.

This week, Brown said he expects to have the petition completed by the end of the week or early next week, and will ask the U.S. Justice Department to expedite its approval of the change in the ballot.

“I spoke to them and they said it is possible to ask for consideration to expedite,” Brown said Tuesday.

Mayor Mike Wheat took liquor off the agenda before Fayetteville's City Council meeting last week, saying the time is not right to discuss the matter. Brown had asked the council to consider putting the issue on the ballot, saying his petition was within 90 signatures of the 35 percent of registered voters required to force the question.

Wheat said he didn't want the council to take a vote on putting the matter on the ballot without a petition unless the vote was likely to be one-sided. “I feel that it ought to be either unanimous or 4-1 before we put [liquor] on the ballot without a petition from the voters,” Wheat said.

He had talked to council members before the meeting, he added, and “it looked like it was just going to be 3-2.

“To take a 3-2 vote on a referendum I didn't think was a very good signal to send to the community,” he added.

Brown asked council to consider notifying the U.S. Justice Department that the question will be on the ballot to give him extra time to get the final signatures.

“I've got 1,650 signatures,” said Lane. “That should give an indication that they do want it on the ballot.”

“We'll think about that,” said Wheat.

Carl Davis, representing the Lakemont Homeowners Association, had attended the council meeting to comment on a zoning matter, but during the liquor discussion stood up and told Lane his neighborhood could supply the 90 additional signatures needed to put liquor on the ballot.

Brown said Tuesday he met with some Lakemont homeowners, and eight volunteers are now canvassing the neighborhood in hopes of getting about 150 more signatures from the neighborhood of more than 300 homes. “I want to get some extras in case some are thrown out,” he said.

If he can't get the issue on the ballot for this November, Brown said he will wait for the presidential primary next March. “I don't want to have a special election on this,” he said. “I can't trust it to the low turnout that you'd have with just one issue on the ballot.”