A small Down East fishing community may, for the first time, allow residents to order frothy mugs of beer or other alcoholic beverages when they sit down at a local restaurant.
Jonesport is one of the many semi-dry rural communities in Washington and Aroostook counties. For decades it was fully dry — meaning you couldn’t get a drink or buy a bottle — but voters approved alcohol sales in stores in 1976.
Now the town, one of the largest lobster ports in the state, is planning to put a series of referendum questions before residents in November that, if all passed, would allow restaurants to sell beer, wine and spirits for customers to drink on-premise, seven days a week.
It’s a topic the town has considered before. Town officials have been waiting for the residents to bring it up again, said selectman Billy Milliken. About six weeks ago, a dentist who owns a waterfront property in Jonesport and is interested in opening a restaurant, brought a citizen’s petition to the town.
The petition didn’t follow the letter of the law to get a referendum question on the ballot, but sent town leaders the message that there was interest in getting alcohol sales on the menu.
Milliken sees it as a way to get more money flowing into the small coastal community and spur economic growth for the town of about 1,300 people. Right now, there are only a handful of places to eat in Jonesport, and people often go out in neighboring communities.
“The town has a lot of needs,” said Milliken. “One thing is more restaurants. This would keep a lot of money in town.”
And while there is a chance the town will be a little less dry come November, it’s unlikely there will ever be a Jonesport bar crawl. In 2015, the town passed zoning regulations that ban any establishment that’s gross revenue is made up of more than one-third from the sale of alcohol.
“We recognized that really the people in town were concerned about there being bars,” Milliken said.
On a busy Thursday, a woman working the phone at Jonesport Pizza, one of the only places to eat in town, said that the pizzeria already sells alcohol for takeout. It can’t be drank on the premises, though. But the owners would be open to selling drinks to customers who are eating in if the vote passes, she said before getting back to work.
If it passes, Jonesport would be following the lead of Corinth, which broke its decades-long stretch as a dry town earlier this year.