Repeal group says it has enough signatures

Tue, Aug 12, 2008    to del.icio.us

The Say Yes to Sunday group says it has more than enough signatures to give Ottawa County voters a chance to repeal the ban on Sunday beer and wine sales.

Now they'll have to wait and see how many of those petition signatures are from registered Ottawa County voters.

The group said it has 39,700 signatures as of 8 this morning, which — if they are all valid — is 1,944 more than necessary to get the measure on the Nov. 4 ballot.

Say Yes to Sunday spokesman Jim Storey said the group could have between 41,000 and 42,000 signatures by the time members deliver the petition to County Clerk Dan Krueger this afternoon.

"I'm confidant with the fact that we'll file enough signatures to give enough buffer for those names that will be disallowed," said Storey, adding that typically between 2 and 10 percent of petition signatures are thrown out.

The clerk's office will count the number of signatures today and will have until Sept. 5 to decide if the petition is valid, according to Krueger.

Krueger said this was the biggest petition drive he's seen in 30 years as the county clerk.

"I give them credit for going out and being persistent," Krueger said. "Ultimately, we'll determine whether it was successful — but even to get to that point where they had enough signatures to file is significant."

Residents can submit challenges against specific signatures to the clerk's office. The petition will be available for public review starting Wednesday morning, Krueger said.

When local restaurant and store owners started the petition drive in June, the goal was 50,000 signatures, which Storey said could have guaranteed a countywide vote.

"I'm not going to say that word — guarantee — to you today because we don't have the 50,000," he said.

As of July 24, the group still needed around 20,000 signatures. Tim Riley, general manager of The Kirby House in downtown Grand Haven, said the petition collection effort snowballed in the last few weeks.

"It got to the point where people were walking into the door saying, 'Where is it? Where do we sign?,'" Riley said.

Say Yes to Sunday supporters were to meet at The Kirby House, 2 Washington Ave., at 2 p.m. today and will walk the petition to the clerk's office in the county courthouse at 3 p.m., Riley said.

Even if the Sunday beer and wine sales repeal makes it onto the ballot this fall, petition organizers say there is still a lot of work to do in educating the public. Although the group is called Say Yes to Sunday, voters will have to understand they have to vote "no" to repeal the ban, Storey said.

Quoting Winston Churchill from World War II, Storey said, "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

"I guess that's where we're at — the end of the beginning," Storey added.