Voters go to the polls May 21 to settle it once and for all
When Niagara voters go to the polls on May 21, they’ll be voting on an issue most already thought was settled.
Is Niagara wet or dry?
Just a few years ago, the local convenience mart sold beer at its 3949 State Route 416-West location, said the current owner, a past owner and residents who live in the area.
But when the store switched ownership, the new owner, Vikas Kumar, was told by the state Alcohol Beverage Control that Niagara is dry, and ABC couldn’t issue a license to sell beer for the store he now calls Niagara Food Mart.
Kumar bought the store in 2022, and when he purchased it, he said the former owners said they had a license to sell beer.
If the area is dry, then why did the previous owners, Raj Sharma and Subhash Chander—as listed on the ABC website indicated—have a liquor license, he wondered.
“That’s what I don’t understand,” Kumar said.
The Hendersonian contacted one of the former owners, Chander, who repeated that he did have a license to sell beer for the Niagara Country Store, which is the name he had used. When asked for a look at the license, he said it has been destroyed.
Records on ABC’s website don’t clear anything up. The website shows that Niagra Country Store Inc. (not “Niagara”) is listed as the licensee, while Sam’s Market is listed as the DBA (Doing business as) name. The address listed is 1048 Clay St. in Henderson.
Did the business names and licenses get conflated?
Attempts to get that answer from the ABC were unsuccessful. A call to the ABC on Monday went unreturned. On Tuesday, the Hendersonian filed an open records request with ABC, asking for documentation that proves Niagara is dry. The only response from the ABC was a bounce-back email that the request had been received. (The Hendersonian will provide an update if the records are received.)
What muddies the water further is a 1999 article in the Gleaner in which former reporter Frank Boyett attempted to delineate the areas of Henderson County that were still dry. From Boyett’s research, the old magisterial districts 6 and 7—including Robards, Cherry Hill and Anthoston in the 6th and Corydon, Dixie, Wilson Station and Cairo in the 7th—were still dry in 1999.
Niagara is not a part of either of those magisterial districts. There haven’t been any wet/dry votes for Niagara since then, so if Boyett’s detailed research was right then, it should still be correct—and Niagara is wet.
But the ABC doesn’t have it that way. A listing of the wet/dry status of Henderson County precincts supplied to the Hendersonian by the Henderson County Clerk’s Office shows Niagara as dry, along with Robards, North Corydon and South Cairo. Anthoston is listed as moist.
Meanwhile, Kumar intends to get the confusion cleared up through a vote. Starting in January, he began taking the steps to get the question on the May 21 ballot.
It reads: “Are you in favor of the sale of alcoholic beverages in the Niagara precinct (B109), of Henderson County, KY?”
After Kumar bought the store in 2022, he said, he was getting another store in Ohio County up and running and didn’t do anything with the local store. He said he re-opened the Niagara store in January and had a ballot petition available in the store since then for patrons to sign. Many questioned the need for a vote, saying they’d bought beer here previously, he said.
He said he collected 160-170 signatures and is confident—“99% sure”—the measure will pass.
Early in the process, Kumar visited Henderson County Judge-Executive Brad Schneider, who according to the business owner, reached out to the ABC. Kumar said Schneider contacted him later, saying he was informed the best approach would be to get the question put on the ballot.
Schneider told the Hendersonian that the wet and dry precincts in Henderson County have an interesting history. To this day, there are questions about the accuracy of both local and state records regarding precincts’ wet or dry status.
After the end of national Prohibition, all counties in Kentucky followed the repeal and went wet. Kentucky state legislators approved a measure that would allow a precinct to hold a vote to determine if the area would go back to being dry.
Schneider said the records of those votes at the courthouse are spotty. In the 1960s, the old courthouse was razed and a new one was built. During the time of construction, records were stored in a warehouse, he said.
Many of the records—and not just those pertaining to wet/dry votes—were damaged or ruined while being stored in the warehouse, he said.
Now, those records the county has on hand and those records the ABC has regarding Henderson County sometimes don’t match, he said.
“I’m glad they were able to get this on the ballot so the local people can decide,” Schneider said.