Bovina petitions alcohol election
Radford Venable, City of Bovina council member, is on a mission. He would like to see tax dollars being spent in surrounding Texas counties and New Mexico on the sale of alcoholic beverages stay in Parmer County, primarily the City of Bovina.
In 1939, the county clerk declared Parmer County dry and it has remained the same ever since. Parmer is one of only 13 counties in the state of Texas still not selling alcohol, Venable said.
Venable started with an application to petition voting Precinct 201, which covers the town of Bovina. The application required ten signatures and a legal notice to be printed in the local newspaper. The notice can be found in the State Line Tribune, August 15, 2013 issue. The application states, To legalize: The legal sale of all alcoholic beverages for off-premise consumption only. He said Precinct 201 has 784 registered voters and the percentage of signatures required for the petition to be processed is 55.3. As of this date, 101 voters have signed the petition. It has been turned in to the County Clerk to verify that each signer is in fact a registered voter of that precinct. However, because of some legal timing issues out of his control, this item will not be on a ballot for voting until May, 2014.
Venable says beginning January, 2014, he will be out campaigning for votes before election time. “My purpose is certainly not to ruin the town of Bovina or the county, but to benefit from the tax revenue that would be kept in Parmer County,” he said.
Those listed as applicants on the local option election petition are: Dina Garcia, Rigo Gonzales, Marta Davidson, Josue Gonzales, Evangelina Casas, Jackie Gonzales, Claudia Trevino, Jackie Reyna, Loreina Saenz, Radford Venable and Kay Venable.
