Money Matters Take Center Stage @ Wet Petitions Press Conference

Why is Gary Huddleston — Progress Dallas spokesman and Kroger’s director of consumer affairs — off to the left and out of focus in this photo?

Well, it may have been because I was taking the shot with an iPhone that lacks auto focus, but it’s also because I’m trying to direct your eyes to Progress Dallas’ poster of featured “supporters.” File that image in your brain and we’ll get back to it in just a bit.

The poster was a silent but significant partner for the press conference that announced Progress Dallas’ gathering of 217,777 signatures. That number is a combination of the 108,943 signatures for a petition that aims to allow beer and wine to be sold at stores in dry parts of Dallas and 108,834 signatures gathered for a petition that seeks to remove the “private club” designations for Dallas-area restaurants that offer alcohol to their customers in a dry area.

Progress Dallas only needed 68,846 signatures from verified Dallas residents to get a city-wide election on both matters this November. If all signatures are certified by the city secretary, then those numbers are record breaking for Dallas petition drives, Huddleston said.

So, why such a record turnout for an issue that if I’m reading correctly already failed in 2006?

Some may point to a theorized shift in morals or a change in the demographics of Dallas residents, but the answer is likely far  simpler:

The city is faced with a reported  $130 million-budget shortfall. Last year it was a reported $190 million-budget gap. Robert Wilonsky, over on Unfair Park, is reporting that City Manager Mary Suhm and Councilman Ron Natinsky are counting on that sales-tax revenue — Huddleston estimated it at a possible $10 million in revenues and — and a projected increase in the commercial tax base from restaurant and grocery store chains that previously avoided dry spots in Dallas to eat up some of that budget deficit in the future.

Some of the same businesses on that poster hosted petitioners and encouraged their customers to sign both petitions. The more surface area canvassed by petitioners, the more likely they were to get their signatures.

Oak Cliff Chamber of Commerce President Bob Stimson put it this way:

“It’s huge for the restaurant industry in Oak Cliff. Restaurants, on average, spend between $20,000 and $25,000 in private-club-related expenses. It will effectively help to stabilize the restaurant industry in Oak Cliff.

The important part for Oak Cliff when it comes to grocers carrying beer and wine is it creates another revenue stream that allows grocers to come into the market.”

We’ve had Albertsons close down a bunch of stores recently. I have parts of Oak Cliff that don’t have a [grocery] store within five miles of a residence,” Stimson said.

The call for convenience and the promise of untapped revenue are nothing to shake a stick at.

Huddleston also said that Kroger would be more likely to increase security and improve conditions at their crime-plagued Wynnewood Village Shopping Center store if voters decided to make the area wet in November.