Is it bottoms up for Sunday liquor sales?

By Bill Donovan
Staff writer

GALLUP — For the second time in less than a year, a group supporting Sunday liquor sales by the drink in Gallup has turned in several hundred signatures to force a referendum on the issue.

Becky Apel, chamber of commerce director and one of the sponsors of the effort, said Friday she was confident that this time enough signatures have been turned in to meet city requirements.

Another group tried unsuccessfully this past summer to get the issue on the ballot, but although they submitted more than 700 signatures, the city clerk’s office found more than 200 of the signatures were invalid. The group came up 33 signatures short of the 500 needed.

This time 50 petition pages were turned in with up to 20 signatures per page.

“Not all of the pages had the full 20 signatures but we turned in way more than we needed,” Apel said.

This time, the group reviewed each signature as it was turned in to make sure it matched the signature and the information on the voter’s registration.

When a difference was found, Apel said, the person would be asked to re-sign and follow what was on his or her registration card.

“We checked before we turned in the petitions and when we came to 520 good signatures, we stopped counting,” Apel said, adding that the group’s effort provided a lot more signatures over and above that.

“This was a challenge,” Apel said, pointing out that the signatures had to match perfectly with the voter registration form which could have been filled out decades ago. “Some people moved a lot of times since then but were required to put the address that was listed on their registration form.”

Mary Jean Christensen, another of the organizers, said that almost everyone who was asked to sign the petitions did so, indicating that people in Gallup were beginning to realize that the lack of Sunday liquor sales at restaurants was costing the city a lot of tourism dollars. People would avoid Gallup on Sundays and go instead to Grants or across the state line to have dinner so they could have a drink with their meal.

She added that there was also a lot of support for the Sunday liquor sales from people who wanted to be able to go out on Sundays and have a drink while they watched professional football games or other sports on a big-screen television.

Apel said the group is now waiting for the city clerk’s office to verify the signatures and announce whether there were enough valid signatures for a referendum.

“We’re hoping that it will go to a vote in March or April,” she said.