2024 Liquor Referendums
After failing on multiple prior occasions, voters in both the Town of Oneida and Scott County passed referendums legalizing liquor sales by fairly comfortable margins on Nov. 5, 2024.
Background
Liquor sales — both by the drink and in package stores — was prohibited in Scott County from Prohibition until the early 2010s, when voters in the Town of Winfield approved referendums legalizing both liquor by the drink and package stores. The Winfield referendum was written in a manner to limit package stores to just one within the city limits.
Meanwhile, liquor sales remained prohibited in the rest of Scott County, despite multiple attempts to approve referendums in both the Town of Oneida and the Town of Huntsville.
The 2024 Effort
In the run-up to the November 2024 general election, representatives of the Scott County Libertarian Party and the Scott County Democratic Party circulated petitions to collect signatures calling for referendums on the liquor referendum. In Tennessee, a referendum can be placed on the ballot if 10% of voters in the most recent election sign petitions requesting it.
Separately, a petition was circulated in Oneida.
In August, the Scott County Election Commission certified the petitions: two for the county-wide ballot, and one inside the Town of Oneida.
The county-wide referendums called for both liquor by the drink and package stores, while the Oneida referendum called only for liquor by the drink.
The Vote
All three of the liquor referendums were passed by comfortable margins on Nov. 5, which saw the largest turnout in Scott County’s modern era: 69%.
Oneida Liquor by the Drink: 886 for (58.6%). 627 against (41.4%).
Scott County Liquor by the Drink: 4,689 for (56.0%). 3,687 against (44.0%).
Scott County Package Stores: 4,790 for (58.3%). 3,426 against (41.7%).
In all three cases, the vote was much closer during Election Day balloting than during the early voting period. In each instance, however, more voters favored than opposed the referendum.
The only segment of voters not in favor of the referendums were absentee voters — which consist mostly of nursing home residents. They rejected the county-wide referendums by votes of 184-142 (liquor by the drink) and 173-152 (package stores). In Oneida, however, absentee voters were narrowly in favor of liquor by the drink, 32-30.
The Result
The referendums legalized liquor by the drink in all of Scott County, at establishments that qualify for a permit. That includes restaurants with a seating capacity of at least 40 that are open at least three days a week, hotels and motels of certain sizes, licensed caterers, clubs that have been in existence at least two years and have at least 100 dues-paying members, and non-food establishments, like bars.
Package stores will remain off-limits in unincorporated areas of Scott County — state law prohibits package stores outside cities in towns in counties with smaller populations — but will be permitted in the towns of Oneida and Huntsville (as well as Winfield, where they were already legal). Although the Town of Oneida did not specifically pass a package store referendum, the county-wide referendum will apply there.