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ASHEBORO — When Tom Carella moved to Asheboro five years ago, he liked the small-town-on-the-way-up vibe the city had. Small enough to feel friendly, big enough to feel connected to the larger world.

Then he tried to buy a beer.

“I wanted to get a six-pack, just to have a beer at home after a long day,” says Carella, 28 . “When I couldn’t find it in the grocery store, I asked someone who worked there. They looked at me like I was asking for pornography.”

The grocery clerk finally told him: no beer, wine or liquor sales in Asheboro. It’s the largest municipality in the state that is still dry.

That could soon change — citizens head to the polls Tuesday to decide whether the city should have ABC stores, beer and wine sales, and liquor-by-the-drink in bars and restaurants.

But to many, this is more than a vote. It’s a battle for the soul of the city.

On one side: businesses and citizens who feel the city should allow adults to buy alcohol and reap the benefits in economic development when hotels, bars and restaurants flow in.

On the other: church groups and more conservative residents who want to preserve the city’s dry tradition and believe alcohol is dangerous to the safety and character of Asheboro.

A furious debate has raged between the two groups for months. Campaigns on both sides have spent tens of thousands of dollars on newspaper and television ads. The arguments continue on blogs and in letters to the editor. Drive through town, and you’ll see “For” or “Against” signs in the yard of nearly every house, in the windows of businesses and cars.

Different this time

This isn’t a new battle. Asheboro voters have said no to alcohol every decade since 1965.

When the last push for legalization failed in 1994 , Asheboro native Ross Holt’s feelings could be summed up with the lyrics of an old Elvis Costello song.

“I used to be disgusted,” Holt says. “Now I try to be amused.”

Holt, 45, works for the Asheboro Library and is a member of the Committee for the Future of Asheboro , the group pushing for legalization. Holt says the group’s members, a virtual who’s-who of the city’s business, civic and political leaders, decided they had to come out publicly for the change.

So earlier this year the group released a roster of its members that boasted both the president and chairman of the board of Randolph Hospital, the president of the North Carolina Zoological Park, a former mayor and the president of the Asheboro/Randolph Chamber of Commerce.

One of the committee’s leaders, attorney Steve Schmidly, says the list put a face on the movement. It helped people realize their neighbors and people they respected are behind it.

“We had to make it be OK for people in this community to support us,” says Schmidly, 58. “There’s no question that when you look at who’s with our cause, who’s giving money, they’re good people. The people who day in and day out create jobs here, create economic opportunity, people who advocate Asheboro becoming a progressive, growing and prosperous place are throwing us their support.”

A moral issue and more

Like many in Asheboro, Gene Booker says the referendum is not just an economic issue — it’s a moral one. As interim director of the Randolph Baptist Association, the 78-year-old represents 45 Southern Baptist churches and two missions — all of which oppose legal alcohol sales.

But Booker says the fight is about more than morality.

“It’s also that the more outlets you have for alcohol, the more problems you’re going to have with it,” he says. “If we have legalized alcohol the community is going to see all kinds of increased costs — we’ll have to hire more police officers, buy them more vehicles. We’ll have all the costs you have with illness due to alcohol and accidents. It’s just not worth it.”

The largest group opposing legalization, Citizens for a Safe and Healthy Asheboro, made a point of shifting from the moral issue to health and safety arguments. Although the group’s largest donations come from Baptist and Pentecostal churches, they’ve also received contributions from Citizens for a Drug Free Community.

But recent calls to the chiefs of police in three nearby towns that have legalized alcohol sales — Albemarle, Lexington and Thomasville — found no substantial upsurge in accidents or crime.

Whether or not it’s dangerous, Mayor David Jarrell says alcohol sales would hurt the city’s character.

“Asheboro is a great place for families to rear their children,” Jarrell wrote in an e-mail response to questions last week.

We are a unique city and proud of our heritage. We would like to keep it that way for future generations.”

Jarrell came under attack recently when it became public that he is an investor in Tott Hill Farm, a company that built a golf course in Asheboro and got a state waiver to serve alcohol to its members. Jarrell says that as a member of the company’s board, he voted against serving alcohol — but he was outvoted.

Jarrell says he isn’t convinced alcohol sales would help turn the city’s economy around. Booker says people should ask themselves: Even if it does, is it worth it?

“I oppose legal alcohol for the same reasons I opposed the state lottery,” Booker says. “We shouldn’t be operating our schools using money from gambling — and we shouldn’t be trying to grow our city with alcohol.”

Growing pains

City Councilman Keith Crisco says the business community is pushing hard for legalization now because Asheboro is in worse economic shape than in 1994. The city lost more than 1,000 manufacturing jobs in the past year.

“Legal alcohol is not so much about consumption,” says Crisco, 65. “It’s about the signal that it sends that we are an open, progressive town that businesses want to be involved with.”

That means adapting to a changing world, drawing in creative people, upscale restaurants and hotels, he says.

“We have new, better highways and the North Carolina Zoo,” Crisco says. “But there’s a little town called Greensboro that’s advertising 'See the zoo, stay in Greensboro.’ And people do.”

Bridging the divide

When signs and T-shirts showed up around town, Eric Newton decided to take things a step further.

Newton, 58, is the owner of Steel Supply and Erection Co. He used his company’s cranes to erect 40-foot-tall signs against the referendum along N.C. 64 and on North Fayetteville Street.

“It’s a moral issue with me,” says Newton, who became anti-alcohol after a religious conversion. “Our company, as a subcontractor, we won’t even bid on ABC stores or any restaurant that has a dedicated bar.”

The city asked Newton to take down the signs, which violate a city ordinance. But he has until Aug. 1 to do it, so he’ll leave them up until the vote.

Rich Powell, an Asheboro cartoonist who works for MAD Magazine, has drawn cartoons mocking the signs and other behavior by opponents of alcohol sales. Some have been printed in the local paper, the Courier-Tribune.

“I guess when I moved here three years ago I didn’t understand how oppressive the idea of a dry city would feel,” Powell says. “When you think about it, it’s one group of people forcing their idea about alcohol on all of the adults in the town. Something about that doesn’t feel right.”

In a town so split over the issue, some wonder whether Asheboro can heal its wounds once the fight is over.

Schmidly says he thinks it can. “I think it’s sad, some of the things that have been said out of narrow-mindedness in this,” Schmidly says. “But I don’t think that’s most people in our community. On both sides of this argument you have good- hearted, reasonable and intelligent people.”

Contact Joe Killian at 883-4422, Ext. 228, or jkillian@news-record.com