HOULTON, Maine — On Tuesday, residents here will be asked to cast their ballots on a local referendum option regarding the sale of beer and wine on Sundays.
The municipal referendum question, placed on the ballot by citizens’ petition, asks voters if they wish to allow the sale of malt liquor and wine to be consumed off the premises of licensed establishments on Sundays.
Stores were selling beer and wine in the town up until April 2015, when an investigation by the state’s Bureau of Alcoholic Beverages found conflicting regulations and directed Houlton establishments, including the town’s three grocery stores, to cease Sunday sales of beer and wine. The stores, however, could still sell hard liquor, such as vodka and rum.
The action involved definitions concerning alcoholic beverages and the interpretation of old local regulations and newer state laws governing the sale of alcohol that were enacted in 2013.
Before 2013, liquor enforcement fell under the jurisdiction of the Maine State Police, according to Tim Poulin, deputy director for the state’s Department of Administration and Financial Services/Bureau of Alcoholic Beverages and Lottery Operations.
In 2013, the Bureau of Alcoholic Beverages and Lottery Operations was made responsible for liquor licensing enforcement, Poulin said last year.
In the process, however, according to Poulin, the law changes affected how the legal definitions of liquor — which includes beer and wine — and spirits — which is only hard liquors such as vodka, rum and whiskey — apply to towns such as Houlton that have local ordinances governing the sale of alcohol in the community.
For decades, Houlton was a dry town, meaning there were no Sunday alcohol sales of any kind. Then, a local referendum in 2004 allowed beer and wine to be consumed in restaurants on Sunday.
And about 10 years ago, local grocery stores discovered that if they were licensed by the state as agency liquor stores, they could legally sell beer, wine and liquor on Sundays because the state’s law superseded the local ordinance in such instances.
That interpretation worked until the state changed the regulations in 2013 and it was a complaint filed last year that led to the agency investigation and its order to the local agency stores to stop selling beer and wine on Sundays.
Only a referendum could change the ordinance, according to town officials. Local residents failed once, but succeeded on their second attempt at gathering a minimum of 315 signatures of registered voters to get the referendum question on the ballot.
The polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday, June 14, at the Gentle Memorial Building, 128 Main St. Residents can continue to register to vote at the Town Office and at the polls, provided they bring identification and proof of residency.