Newport voters will make decision Tuesday on mixed beverage referendum

NEWPORT — Scott Fasulo won’t be able to cast a vote in the Town of Newport’s municipal election, but he’d support a mixed drink referendum that’s on the ballot if he could.

Fasulo lives just outside the town limits but said he now has to go to neighboring towns like Morehead City to find a restaurant or establishment where he can have a mixed alcoholic beverage.

He doesn’t see a big chain restaurant moving into downtown Newport, but he does see U.S. 70 as an appropriate spot.

“Along the highway up there, I think it would be a good idea,” he said. “There would be an opportunity for someone to move in up there if they could (sell mixed drinks), but now it’s not even an option.”

Whether or not it will become an option will be decided Tuesday as Newport voters go to the polls to elect members to the town board and vote for or against the mixed drink referendum.

Specifically, the referendum is whether or not to allow the town “to permit the sale of mixed beverages in hotels, restaurants, private clubs, community theatres and convention centers.”

The last time a referendum was held in the town on the issue was 1933, just after prohibition, said Town Planner Bob Chambers.

It was voted down then, but it’s been more than 75 years and supporters of the idea see it now as an economic development issue.

“What’s happened is we’ve missed opportunities on U.S. 70,” said Newport resident and business owner April Pike.

The U.S. 70 corridor through Newport includes a shopping center with Food Lion grocery store and fast food restaurants such as Bojangles or Subway. But it remains void of the chain restaurants that can be found along the corridor east and west of Newport.

“Also we don’t have any hotels,” Pike said. “If friends or family come to town they have to stay somewhere else.”

Chambers said the town has had inquiries from real estate developers and other scouts asking about property and researching zoning for commercial development, such as upper scale restaurants and hotels, but nothing has come to fruition.

The highway corridor has the commercial zoning, the availability of water and sewer and available land along US 70. The missing link seems to be the lack of a permit for liquor by the drink, Chambers said.

“The zoning is in place, water and sewer is in place. It’s prime for development but without this issue, we’ll never have it, in my opinion,” he said.

The town’s Board of Commissioners did not take any position on the issue but agreed to put the referendum on the ballot after receiving a request from business owner Johnny Kucinski, who operation Johnny’s Dilemma of Chatham Street.

To have a referendum, a request had to come from the town’s governing body.

Contact Jannette Pippin at 910-382-2557 or jpippin@freedomenc.com.