The Following is an article from the Lufkin Daily News.Is it good for Angelina County or bad. You be the judge.Estimates on alcohol sales tab varyBy
HINA ALAMThe Lufkin Daily News
Saturday, June 03, 2006
The last time Oscar Dillahunty organized an election to make Angelina County wet, he said, he estimated that the county would get $15 million from alcohol sales. That was in 1981.
Dillahunty is spokesman for another petition drive that, if successful, would force a wet/dry election in Angelina County later this year. He contends the county would still get $15 million a year in gross alcohol sales if the issue passes.
Dillahunty said he speaks from experience. From 1984 until about four years ago, Dillahunty owned a wholesale beer warehouse in Mississippi, where, he says, he and two other distributors sold approximately 15 cases of beer per person, per year, in a seven-county area in which only five counties were wet. Each case of beer, he says, had two dozen 12-ounce cans.
"(Beer consumption) hasn't gone down," he said. "If anything it's gone up. Prices have increased."
If Dillahunty's estimate is accurate, and gross sales in Angelina County from beer and wine really were $15 million, the city of Lufkin would get $225,000 from sales taxes based on its 1 1/2-cent sales tax. Angelina County would get another $75,000 based on its half-cent tax.
Skeptics
Not everybody believes Dillahunty's estimate is accurate.
"That sounds like too much," said Dary (who did not want to give her last name) of J.D.'s Liquor Store on U.S. Highway 59 north, across the Angelina River bridge. "No way Angelina County could get that much per year. ... That's more than (people would spend) on groceries. I know people drink, but that's ridiculous."
One of the owners of Hill's Liquor, also on the other side of the Angelina River, was as skeptical.
"I don't think so. That's wrong," he said.
He said Dillahunty had never spoken to him or his relatives. The revenue that Angelina County would get, would not be more than $5 million per year — "not even that much," he said.
"($15 million)'s too high," said an employee at The Beer Store on state Highway 94 west. "That's not true."
A manager at Quik Stop II on U.S. Highway 59 said the county could expect not more than $4 million or $5 million in gross sales.
"It's not possible to get $15 million," he said.
"I really don't know about the $15 million in gross sales," Lufkin City Manager Paul Parker said. "We'd have to wait and see, should Angelina County go wet."
Statistics
Alcohol consumption has stabilized since 1995, according to the National Cancer Institute. In 2002, per-capita consumption was 2.2 gallons for all alcoholic beverages, including beer, wine and liquor.
Sites on Texas, a state Web site that provides statistics to economic developers, estimates that Angelina County's 28,978 households spent an average of $439 on alcoholic beverages last year.
If that average is correct, Angelina County residents spent $12.7 million on beer, liquor and wine last year, whether at local restaurants and bars or at convenience, liquor and grocery stores outside the county.
Sites on Texas is a credible source, said Linda Parker, vice president of community and business development with the Angelina County Chamber of Commerce. The Web site that contains the statistics is managed by Texas Workforce Solutions, she said.
An auditor in the state comptroller's office who asked not to be identified said the $439 seemed a plausible figure because it was an average.
"That's how averages are," the auditor said. "They seem too small to some; they seem too much to some."
But while the $12.7 million estimate isn't far off of Dillahunty's annual projection, it includes alcohol sales at bars and restaurants. Last year, Angelina County establishments sold $4.6 million worth of alcohol, based on mixed beverage tax revenues collected by the city of Lufkin and the county. So, if Angelina County residents spend the difference — $8.1 million — on alcohol purchased from stores, that would mean an extra $121,500 in sales taxes for the city of Lufkin and another $40,500 for the county.
Angelina County got $68,453 in mixed beverage taxes in calendar 2005, while Lufkin got $65,152 during the same time frame, according to data on the state comptroller's Web site.
All mixed beverage and private club permit-holders send to the state a 14-percent gross receipts tax on their mixed beverage sales each month. (Sales taxes are not assessed on beer, wine and other alcohol sold in restaurants and bars.) Following the end of each calendar quarter, a little more than one-tenth of the mixed beverage taxes collected goes to the city, and an equal amount goes to the county in which each business is located. The remaining tax is distributed to the state's general fund.
