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STOKESDALE — The Rev. Jerry Walker wants to keep liquor sales out of Stokesdale because they go against conservative Christian values in the community.

Stokesdale bar owner Angie Lawson believes allowing liquor sales could mean more revenue for the town.

On Tuesday, both will vote on the liquor-by-the-drink and ABC-store referendums. Though the issues are related, one could pass without the other.

The town already allows beer and wine permits. Local restaurants and bars like Village Pizza and Lawson’s bar — Early Times Bar and Carry Out — sell beer and wine.

“Obviously, we can’t do anything about that,” Walker said about beer and wine sales. “We’re simply battling what we have before us.”

More availability will bring more consumption, Walker said.

But Lawson said the referendums will give people “a reason to stay in Stokesdale. People are spending their money outside this town.”

Stokesdale doesn’t have any sit-down-style chain restaurants.

“This could bring good restaurants ... jobs to this community,” Lawson said.

William and Treeva Carter agree. The couple moved to Stokesdale in May.

“We definitely need another restaurant here,” Treeva Carter said. “Just because it’s here doesn’t mean you have to drink it.”

Her husband said, “It would keep people from leaving this area to go to Greensboro or Kernersville to sit down for a nice meal.”

Community activist Pam Lemmons said she doesn’t want people to be misled about the possibility of large chain restaurants coming to Stokesdale.

“I’ve spoken with people who know a lot about the restaurant business, and they say that it has more to do with demographics than whether or not a town has liquor-by-the-drink,” she said.

Lemmons, co-founder of Revitalizing Our Ancestors Dreams in Stokesdale , said poll results taken at a Saturday market revealed a nearly even split between people for and against the referendums.

“I think people are still going to be shocked with it no matter how it turns out,” she said. “I think the council has done a great service to the people by letting them vote.”

Putting these issues into the hands of the voters has been a year-long ordeal in which three out of five council members changed their minds.

The council voted against offering alcohol referendums last year because the town would have had to pay for a special election.

“At that time, we had 100-plus people who were against it and maybe three people who were for it,” Mayor Randle L. Jones during a candidates forum Oct. 22. Jones is running unopposed. “Three people didn’t justify costing the town for the extra election.”

“I didn’t advocate for it one way or the other,” incumbent Councilwoman Mickie Halbrook said during the recent forum. “After it fell through the first time, we had a lot of people tell us that, 'We don’t think it’s right that five people make that decision,’” she said.

In June, Halbrook asked the council to schedule a July hearing on the referendums. “Maybe we should let everybody vote on it to see what they want to do,” Halbrook said at the time.

The council voted to add the issue to the ballot this year because it would not cost extra money. At the July meeting, Halbrook, Jones and then-Councilman Norman Cook all changed their votes to support allowing the public to decide.

Now, Lemmons and Jones both say people should “vote their conscience.”

Contact Tiffany S. Jones at 373- 7157 or tiffany.jones@news-record.com