The city of Pearl issued the following statement.
Over 12 years ago, the state Legislature passed a bill that enabled the city of Pearl to create the West Pearl Restaurant Tax District. Restaurants located in the WPRTD are able to sell mixed drinks and wine, but restaurants in Pearl that are not within the district could not.
After the WPRTD was created, Pearl voters approved the levying of a two percent sales tax on all prepared food and drink sold in restaurants within the district. The city uses the proceeds of the special tax to meet the obligations it incurs in bringing new developments to that part of the city.
During the 2019 legislative session, Senate Bill 3122 was passed and signed by Gov. Phil Bryant. That bill extended the WPRTD to include the entire city of Pearl, which paves the way for all restaurants in the city to sell mixed drinks and wine with the food they serve, provided they meet all city and state Alcohol Beverage Control codes.
Pearl Mayor Jake Windham said the city would continue to levy the special two percent in the original WPRTD but would not carry it into all of the newly created WPRTD.
“There is an option in Senate Bill 3122 that would allow us to hold an election on levying the two percent tax citywide, but we don’t intend to do that,” Windham stated. “Last year, voters approved a special sales tax to upgrade our parks and recreation facilities and we don’t want to put any more on our citizens.
“We have had a great response from existing restaurants who are excited about the ability to serve wine and mixed drinks in their establishments. Many others have contacted the city since Gov. Bryant signed the bill.”
Windham added that the sale of mixed drinks and wine is a key component in attracting new restaurants to Pearl. He noted that new restaurants would provide more variety for Pearl residents to choose from.
23 comments:
Can anyone explain to me why we still can't have liquor stores in Flowood? Serious question.
Because there havens for drug dealers and prostitution.
Because thusfar the electorate has not seen fit to approve liquor stores -- and that has been attempted numerous times, although not recently.
Sinners and lusters and sloths are they. Pearlitans just let the devil in.
@10:41 - *they’re
You should see all the thugs at Colony Wine in Madison. Especially in the humidity controlled cellar area. And all the empty bottles of Chateauneuf du Pape just rolling around the parking lot. Why, just the other day I saw some guy walk outta there with a $250 pinot (I'm sure he drove up from Hinds County) in the middle of the damn day! Like, do you not get your booze and drugs delivered like we do in Niknar? What if your preacher sees you? Totally out of control. I'm sure that guy was headed straight to the spillway as soon as he popped that cork. Probably still sitting down there on the rocks. We'd just like to say a big 'ol NO THANK YOU to that here in Pearl, where we die from cardiovascular disease from gorging on crappy fastfood like good Christians!
It is not the first time that people with hubris show their snobbery toward those they deem ignorant. It is also common that these insults are hurled with the use of misspelled words.
So it is ok to get drunk off your ass at Mugshots but God forbid you buy the Devil's juice from a store.
@12:24
Subtlety escapes you. You should also seek some help. You have obvious serious issues.
Anyone who knows alcoholics knows that the more barriers protecting them from their self destruction, the better. I say keep Rankin dry. The hardcore drunks know where to find it. You can go be a degenerate lush somewhere else.
Those people struggling each day with sobriety dont need more liquor stores calling out to them on their way home from work. Nothing wrong with having at least one safe haven in the metro.
Pearl.....liquor...... once upon a time a certain sheriff of Rankin would have parties. I actually went to one in 1980, and there was more liquor there than at any liquor store. I saw it myself. Now, tell me why Rankin is so backwards? It’s taken over 50 years to get any places like Shaggy’s on the Rankin side.
@9:52 because Rankin county is a dry county.
Lord, spare me another Christian.
When will Mississippi join the 19th century and drop all this ignorance about booze? Voting yourself a resort area is such a joke-we did it at the Reservoir some years ago… Duh… Imagine the reservoir being a resort area so now we can have drinks at Shaggys and other places. We legalized beer throughout the county in about the late 1980s.... another time when we voted on it. Just because something is legalized doesn’t mean you have to take part in it-you do not have to smoke, drink, go to casinos or other venues like them. Mississippi needs to grow up!
The old school hard core Baptist are the reason we cant have one in Rankin County yet. It's coming, just be patient. Times they are a changin'. We had a Mardi Gras Parade this year in downtown Brandon and people were a drankin in the streets. We have an actual bar downtown that serves the hardest of lickers, and gasp, Widespread Panic is coming to play their music deep into the night. Licker stores are just around the corner.
Maybe I'm not understanding this completely, but - since Rankin is a dry county, I assume because the citizens voted it to be dry.
The legislature said Pearl could have this exempt area where liquor could be served, and have now extended that area. Am I correct in assuming that without this intervention, a city within a dry county could not legally approve liquor sales?
This seems like subverting the will of the people by going through the legislature. I'm having a hard time seeing how this rises to the level of State business. If you don't like that Rankin is dry, get the signatures to bring it up for another vote.
One cannot buy whiskey in Rankin? Who knew? for a modest fee, I'll meet you any day at the McDonald's, east end of Spillway Road and bring you anything you want. Have your left blinker on and cash only.
PS: I will be armed so don't be actin' all funny.
I don't know that I've ever seen a drug dealer or prostitute in a Madison liquor emporium. But, their knot open on Sundays so I cain't be sure.
@1:03, I agree completely. People just don’t have the will power to fight the temptations of alcohol and everyone else should sacrifice to help them with their personal lack of responsibility. I say we should go even further to really do some good. For my fatty friends who can’t handle the temptations of McDonald’s and Baskin Robbins, we should outlaw everything but water, fruits, vegetables, and lean proteins (fish, chicken and turkey). Let Rankinites go to Jackson or Madison if they have to get their fast food fix, but we certainly shouldn’t be encouraging their sickness here in Gods country - Pearl, MS.
IT'S A TRAP!
1:03 and 3:30, y'all are making a lot of sense. I think the rise of the internet has caused a lot of issues that big government needs to step in and fix also. So many kids are addicted to porn and video games and they just can't help themselves. I say we outlaw computers, phones, tablets and any other way to access the devil's network. No more sinning in pearl on our watch.
The citizen in Rankin County decide what they for their county. Why should anyone else care? With serious issues like spill over crime from Jackson added to the Rankin low life, this seems a silly problem.
Prohibition didn’t work in the 1920s and 1930s and it doesn’t work now. Trying to claim that the lack of liquor stores in Rankin County will keep temptation away from alcoholics is just another ridiculous claim set forth by the Baptist preachers and bootleggers. If an alcoholic wants liquor he will simply drive to Hinds or Madison County and get it, then drink some of it and drive back to Rankin impaired, endangering everyone on the road. If he doesn’t want to drive all the way to one of those liquor stores there are places where bootleggers still ply their illegal trade or he can go to a bar in one of the “resort areas”, get hammered and drive home. Keeping Rankin dry is just plain dumb and it is well past time to fix that problem.
Mississippi along with quite a few of its counties, continue to kick their own collective a**es with these medieval laws against legally selling marijuana, liquor sales, liquor sales on Sundays, and prostitution.
I understand the concerns with legalizing prostitution. But liquor sales is another story.
ABC taxes the hell out of it and then decides what liquor can come into the state. The consumer is royally f*cked with poor selection, then when and where they can buy it.
Major chains cannot sell, making it tougher on the consumer. Then on top of it - even the mom and pop liquor stores are not allowed to sell beer in their location? That is the most asinine sh*t I've ever heard of!?
The minute Louisiana allowed Sunday liquor sales, Mississippi should have signed off on the same to keep people from going next door.
The legislature finally got a clue when they seen so many residents going to Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee to buy tickets
As a Jacksonian, I would hate to see Rankin go wet completely because those revenues help us out. But as a Mississippian, its just common sense to go ahead and go wet , when you are surrounded by wet counties.
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