EAST TEXAS (KYTX) -- Over the last few years, East Texas has become a little wetter in some areas. In each case, the idea of selling alcohol in a community has sparked the debate between increased crime and increased money.
The Investigators chose three East Texas cities that recently went wet: Winona, Rusk and Jacksonville. We filed open records requests to see how much tax money the cities are actually bringing in from alcohol sales, and if the sale of alcohol has had a direct affect on the crime rate in those towns.
Winona
"We were kind of going blind into it," Winona City Manager Bubba Bixler said. "We didn't know how this was going to work for us."
In November 2009, voters in Winona chose to allow the sale of liquor in their town. They were hoping for an economic boom. Records show that in 2009 the City of Winona brought in just over $30,000 in sales tax revenues.
"We had a restaurant and a gas station that was it," Bixler said.
But when alcohol sales started, sales tax revenues skyrocketed from $30,000 in 2009 to just under $223,000 in 2011. That's more than seven times the amount of tax revenue Winona collected the year before alcohol sales started.
"We've done three new roads re-paved all those, all of our entry ways now have concrete entrances, new curbs new gutter, we've done some drainage work on one of our roads, we've done one of our water towers, actually bought a utility truck for our utility department."
But people against the sale of alcohol argued that with the revenue would come an increase in alcohol related crimes. Winona Police Chief Robert Tapley said that hasn't happened.
"I'm not really seeing an increase in anything that's alcohol related," Tapley said.
He said some alcohol-related crimes are actually down.
"Open containers have dropped," Tapley said.
He said, overall, crime numbers are up slightly. But that's because when the city went wet, they put more officers on the streets.
"The more officers you put on the more people you can catch," Tapley said.
Rusk
Three months before Winona went wet, voters in Rusk decided they wanted to be able to sell and buy beer and wine in their city. But in Rusk, the benefits of alcohol sales are harder to see.
That's because sales tax revenues were already on the rise in Rusk. Since 2006, revenues were increasing steadily by about $50,000 a year. Then, in 2009, when the city went wet, sales tax revenues jumped about $68,000. The same was true for 2010.
"The city just doesn't have a way to gage how alcohol has affected sales tax, but anytime you bring a new product into town you will get more sales tax," Rusk City Manager Mike Murray said.
Murray said an emphasis on shopping locally and ticket sales from the Texas State Railroad also helped fuel the spike. But in 2011, Rusk fell short by about $70,000. The State Comptrollers Office tells The Investigators an audit and a down economy could be the reason for that.
As for crime, Rusk Police Chief Joe Evans said little has changed.
"We have not seen any significant increase at all in the number of arrests for DWI," Chief Evans said.
In 2008, there were 14 DWI's in Rusk. Since then, the number has bounced between seven and 10 arrests per year.
"They are people passing through," Evans said. "They stop in Lufkin, buy their alcohol and by the time they get here they are intoxicated."
But the crime stats show one big increase in Rusk: public intoxications. 2008 numbers could not be tracked down, but in 2009 there were 27. In 2010 there were 35, and in 2011 there were 46 public intoxication arrests.
But, Chief Evans said, local alcohol sales aren't to blame. He said an increase in mud parties in Alto and Jacksonville are causing more people to stop through town.
Jacksonville
Like Winona and Rusk, voters in Jacksonville wanted to cash in on alcohol sales. They voted "yes" to wine and beer in 2010. It was a boost for merchants selling the products.
"I never thought it would ever do what it's doing," Gallo Mercado manager Tony Wilburn said. "We are selling a lot more than I thought."
But Jacksonville City Manager Mo Raisi said the boost to tax revenue has been minor.
"It's not that significant 2.9 percent but we'll take it as it comes."
He said you can't compare Jacksonville to smaller cities like Winona and Rusk because Jacksonville has more sources of revenue. He said a big source is from construction. The school district is building several new schools in the city. But, Raisi admits, even part of the construction boom is tied to beer and wine sales.
"Lot's of stores expanded," he said. "We have at least two or three new stores and also the older stores expanded so that helps with the construction side of it."
In relation to crime, Police Chief Reece Daniel has seen little change in his numbers.
"If you're looking at it from a police perspective it truly makes very little difference in a community of our size," Daniel said. "Our crime rate dealing with alcohol related offenses has either stayed static or gone down slightly."
For example, there were 48 DWI's in Jacksonville in 2008. There were 37 in 2009 and 57 in 2010. Then in 2011, the number dropped back to 48.
"This is fairly typical," Daniel said. "Talking to police chiefs over the years who have gone through this before this is a normal course of events. It doesn't create the big increase in crime that people think it will."
