Dry County
I work at the locally-owned private club/restaurant, Omar’s Steakhouse and the 501 Club. The 501 Club bit remains in the name because the building used to exist on 501 [Whatever] Street, but I guess at some point the Hurt family (in sync with Omar himself) decided to move the building to it’s current location on Philips Drive, just off of Caraway. I’d say our restaurant has the best food in town. Truly, you can order just about anything on the menu, put it into your mouth, and experience a profound sense of oneness with the universe. We had a woman tell us that our Mahi-Mahi was better than the Mahi-Mahi they served down in the Florida, where you’d expect seafood to be a thriving industry. It’s pretty astounding that this landlocked city and state could pull that sort of thing off, but head chef Omar Barry and the rest of the kitchen crew can be considered no less than culinary masterminds.
I am a host at the 501 Club, and just so no-one gets confused, Omar’s Steakhouse and the 501 Club are one in the same institution. It is my job to decide where to set up the larger tables (of 9 people or more), facilitate a rotation of customers to all the servers we have working the floor on a particular night, answer phone calls, and take to-go orders. Typically, the phone starts ringing just as people are walking through the front door expecting service. I think they refer to that as Murphy’s Law.
Here is a map depicting all of the counties of Arkansas: http://www.state.ar.us/dfa/abc_administration/regs/abcadm_map.html The darkened counties are referred to as “wet counties,” or basically counties in which it is legal to sell alcohol in almost all venues, to people of the appropriate age. We exist in a “dry county,” or a county in which alcohol is only legally sellable via a type of beverage permit issued by the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board Administration. This means that I have the added responsibility of selling $5 memberships in the foyer of the 501 where the host stand is, to allow people to legally access our club, since we have a bar and sell alcohol. ABC says that every person entering the 501 Club must present their Membership Card and scrawl their John Hancock into our roster, unless they are the guest of a person with a membership. It is my job to make sure that this takes place, in an orderly fashion.
Recently, an ABC member went into Fuji, the Japanese steakhouse on Highland Drive, posing as an average, everyday customer who just really wanted a drink. The Fuji staff said “Oh thank you sir! It’s great to have you. We always appreciate a customer! Just go right over there and sit down!” Mr. ABC tore off the mask and slapped the establishment with a fine of several thousand dollars for not forcing him to purchase a membership. ”So yeah, that’ll show ‘em!”
…But honestly, what did ABC really show them?
There is a new law scheduled to come into effect sometime next week that says that people are no longer allowed to go to a bar in a dry county and drink unless there is a plate of food setting in front of them. But apparently, if we just set trays of trail mix before every third seat or so at the bar, we will be regarded as compliant. Is there really any point at all to establishing this sort of a law? Is it done just to make Craighead feel better about itself, just for the sake of creating some naive reassurance that it’s citizens aren’t the sort of people who can enjoy alcohol by itself? The laws really don’t make any logical sense, so I assume their chief purpose is to inject some backward type of morality into the citizens of Craighead County.
I’d like to note here that my position is strictly objective. It does not affect me in any important way if our county is dry or wet, because personally, I feel that there are better ways I can spend my time than getting completely wasted every weekend, or weeknight. If I wanted to, though, it would not be difficult for me to obtain alcohol. Despite this being a dry county, people constantly exit to get alcohol, and then only bring it right back into the land of Craighead; if someone really wants to drink, the fact that this is a dry county will not do much at all to stop them.
Look, I love my job. Working at the 501 is absolute bliss. The food is amazing, the staff is personable and entertaining, and I get to dress up (shirt and tie) for work every day. But really and truly, the dry county policy here just seems stupid. These alcohol laws are just laws for the sake of having laws. Anyone can drive 15 minutes North, South, East or West and enter into Greene, Jackson, Poinsett or Mississippi county, purchase alcohol, and bring it back into Craighead county. It’s all political, and it’s no doubt highly influenced by local celebrity preacher Archie Mason’s anti-alcohol tangents which are no doubt heard regularly at the massive Central Baptist Church on Harrisburg Road, the one affectionately referred to as “Fort God.” Most radical positions like his are the result of personal experiences, and I pay the respect due him for those, despite their being completely unknown to me. It should not be forgotten, however, that Jesus Christ‘s first miracle involved his turning water into wine to keep a party going. It’s strange to see such animosity toward alcohol spouting from an advocate of a religion in which the centrally-worshipped being performs miracles like this, as well uses wine to represent his blood in a metaphorical “last” conversation a la “the last supper.”
People come into our restaurant and they do not understand why they have to pay for a membership, even if they live in California or Florida or Michigan or Maine and will never be returning. And I don’t really understand it either. But I’m just an 18-year-old boy! What do I know?
Brett Evan Barber
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