PC residents set to vote on alcohol sales

Phil Campbell town officials will be hosting their “in-town” vote on whether or not to allow the sale of alcohol inside their city limits on June 1.

The municipal election will be held the same day as the county and state party primaries.

Officials said residents will have to cast two separate ballots if they want to vote in both elections.

A new state law allows towns with populations over 1,000 to hold alcohol sales referendums if a petition is turned in to city officials that meets certain criteria.

A group of Phil Campbell residents had a petition certified, which meant city officials could not keep it off the ballot. Since the vote will be held the same day as the primary and the issue cannot be placed on the general ballot, separate polling areas will be used.

“Everything will be separate,” said Phil Campbell town clerk Ann Bragwell. “There will be separate machines, separate ballots and separate poll workers.”

Both the general election and the wet/dry vote will be held at the Phil Campbell Community Center.

City officials said a poll watcher will be on hand to make sure each and every vote is put through the machine and is properly counted for the separate referendum.

“There will be poll workers placed at the community center and residents who want to vote on the wet/dry referendum will have to do so between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.,” Bragwell said. “The machine will talley up the votes after the poll closes at 7 p.m. and we should have the results within an hour or so after the voting process is over.”

City officials in Russellville speculate that if Phil Campbell’s vote comes back wet, it may potentially create a domino effect pushing Russellville’s petition to have the same vote in November.