Berkeley panel votes on alcohol

MONCKS CORNER -- Sunday beer and wine sales in rural Berkeley County moved a step closer to a popular vote Monday.

County Council's community services committee, which includes all seven council members, agreed to allow a referendum to proceed to a second reading later this month. If council approves the referendum after a third reading next month, residents would vote in November whether to allow Sunday beer and wine sales throughout the county.

Sunday alcohol sales already are allowed in Berkeley County in Goose Creek, Hanahan, Daniel Island, North Charleston and Summerville.

Residents also can buy beer and wine every day anywhere in Charleston and Dorchester counties. Charleston County, Dorchester County and most of the local major towns and cities have passed similar referendums.

If the Berkeley County referendum passes, stores in the small towns and rural areas of the county also would get a piece of the action.

Council will hold a public hearing next month before final approval.

Monday's committee vote was 4-2. Dennis Fish and Steve Davis voted against it. Nobody commented on the issue Monday, but Fish and Davis gave their reasons for opposing the referendum at the last meeting.

"My own personal conviction is that day should be set aside as special," Fish said when opposing it on first reading.

"My wife told me not to support this," Davis said at the last meeting. "She told me there's enough people drinking six days a week, so why add another one?"

Caldwell Pinckney was absent Monday. At the last meeting, he voted to allow the referendum.