Saturday, August 09, 2008

Prohibition in SW VA?

Shooting Creek Farm Brewery, a proposed brewpub brewery in Floyd County, Virginia (southwestern Virginia) is being opposed by a group of local Christian ministers. Blue Ridge Muse, a blogger there, has posted this:

I've always found it fascinating how fundamentalist ministers yank out the Bible and start waving it around to preach against the dangers of demon rum (or beer or wine or whatever). The only sin that refers to the intake of nourishment or beverages is gluttony. In other words, it's not against the preachings of God to drink a beer. It may be one to chug-a-lug a keg but that's an argument for another day.

As regular readers of this site know, I'm a recovering alcoholic who has been sober 14 years, two months and two days. I serve as Floyd County's representative on the New River Valley Alcohol Safety Action Program (ASAP) advisory board and am a volunteer counselor for an alcoholism treatment program.

However, I cannot -- and will not -- stand by and watch a bunch of self-anointed guardians of morality try and stifle free-enterprise in this county and force their narrow focus view of the world on the rest of the county. Floyd is not a dry county, nor should it be one. Our wineries draw tourists and bring in business and provide employment to a county where the unemployment rate is higher than the rest of Virginia. The Shooting Creek Brewery should be allowed to become an important part of the growing tourism-based economic engine of the area.


Brewpub brouha
August 8, 2008


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Local hearings, unannounced to the principals of the brewpub Ray Jones and Brett Nichols— are scheduled for next week. David Turley at Musings Over a Pint has more on this ongoing story.

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