Nevada town gets alcohol for first time

Alamo, Nevada, still won’t have bars, but stores will be able to sell alcohol when the repeal of a 1985 prohibition takes effect

Alcohol sales are coming to the small town of Alamo, Nevada.

On Tuesday, the Lincoln County Commission voted unanimously to end the town’s “dry” ordinance which had been in effect since 1985, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Bars still won’t be allowed in Alamo, but residents and visitors will be able to buy beer, wine, and liquor when the repeal takes effect in the coming weeks.

Alamo is an unincorporated town in Lincoln County, about 90 miles north of Las Vegas. A significant number of its early settlers were Mormon, and a majority of its roughly 1,100 residents today are members of the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The church generally asks its followers to abstain from alcohol consumption, and Alamo made that position its official town policy when it passed the prohibition nearly four decades ago.

Alamo was far from the only town in the country with a ban on alcohol sales. Panaca, another town in Lincoln County, has a ban as well, as do several predominantly Mormon communities in Utah — but town officials felt that their ban was making it difficult for its top businesses to survive.

“We’re doing it to keep a level playing field with the businesses outside of town,” town board Chairman Vern Holaday told the Lincoln County commission in comments reported by the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “It’s not like there’s going to be a bar in every corner in town.”

Mr Holaday said the town board had been particularly concerned about the future of the Great Basin Foods supermarket and the attached Sinclair gas station — particularly in the wake of news that a Las Vegas-based grocery store chain proposed building a motel, gas station, and market selling liquor at a site just outside Alamo.

The chain, Green Valley Grocery, already has a market selling alcohol in nearby Ash Springs.

Mr Holaday told the publication that the repeal of the prohibition will not allow for a possibility of a bar opening in the town because county law prohibits alcohol sales within 1,500 feet of a church, school or other alcohol business, and Alamo is just over a mile across.

At their meeting on Tuesday, per the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Commissioner Janine Woodworth had a message for people who don’t want to allow alcohol sales in Alamo: “You don’t have to buy it if you don’t want to drink it,” Ms Woodworth said.