By John Lyon
Arkansas News Bureau

LITTLE ROCK — The state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board on Wednesday approved a beer permit for a Fayetteville convenience store but denied a permit to another store that Fayetteville police called the worst convenience store in the city.

The board voted 5-0 to overturn ABC Director Michael Langley’s March 19 decision to deny a request by E-Z Mart to sell beer at its store at 3408 S. School Ave. The store is the third convenience store in Fayetteville allowed to sell beer; permits for two others were approved by the board in April.

The Washington County Beverage Association opposed the application. Stuart Hindmarsh, an attorney for the association, argued that the store is on land that was in Greenland Township before being annexed by Fayetteville, and Greenland was a dry township.

ABC attorney Donald Bennett said a state law that was on the books from 1967 to 1995 said a dry township that is annexed into a wet city stays dry, but the law was not in effect when Greenland Township was annexed in 1961.

A 1977 opinion by then-Attorney General Bill Clinton said that a dry township annexed into a wet city does not stay dry if the annexation occurred before 1967, Bennett said.

The opinion was sought when whiskey distiller Hiram Walker was seeking to build a plant in Fort Smith on land that was formerly part of a dry township, he said.

Also Wednesday, the board voted 3-2 to uphold a March 19 decision by Langley to deny E-Z Mart’s request to sell beer at its store at 1950 N. Leverett Ave.

Fayetteville Police Sgt. Tim Franklin testified that the store is in an area that has seen high levels of violent and drug-related crime, including nine homicides that occurred within a mile of the store within the last five years.

Franklin and other officers testified that police have responded to numerous incidents at the store, including two armed robberies within the last six years. Franklin also showed the board a video of what he said was a drug deal taking place in daylight in the parking lot of an apartment complex near the store.

“Is there any convenience store as bad as this one (in Fayetteville)?” Hindmarsh asked.

“No. There is not a convenience worse than this,” Franklin said.

Charles Singleton, attorney for E-Z Mart, argued that the crime rate in the area has dropped since May 2008. Franklin said the drop occurred because police intensified enforcement efforts in the area, but he said allowing alcohol sales in the area would create new problems.

Singleton said only 39 permits have been issued in Washington County for beer sales for off-premises consumption, and 33 of them belong to liquor stores. In comparison, 353 beer permits have been issued in Pulaski County, 245 of them to convenience and grocery stores, he said.

“It’s not the role of the state to limit competition,” Singleton said. “I think that’s clearly the situation in that county.”

Board member J.J. Vigneualt made the motion to uphold the director’s denial of the permit, saying crime in the area was a concern.

“They ought to take a bulldozer and bulldoze about the whole neighborhood down there, it looks like,” he said.

E-Z Mart CEO Sonja Hubbard said after the hearing she did not immediately know whether the company would appeal the board’s decision.

Hubbard said she believed the officers did not paint a true picture of the store and the neighborhood.

“If you look at the statistics from our store, it doesn’t indicate it,” she said. “I have been in that area recently myself, and I think there are probably some citizens who live in that area who probably would be offended to see it portrayed as such a crime-riddled neighborhood.”