The Heights Life provides a fact sheet:
- The petition is backed by HEB, who hired a law firm to handle the drive. Some of the canvassers, who are paid and may or may not be your neighbors or Heights residents, may not know about HEB, only the firm that hired them. Either way, it’s all about HEB.
- The petition itself does NOT actually change anything about the existing law. The petition puts the issue on the ballot to be voted on in November.
- You can only sign the petition and participate in the subsequent vote if you live in the dry zone.
- The petition/future vote are for *off premise sales of beer and wine only.* This means you can buy beer or wine at the store and take it elsewhere. You will not be able to drink at the store.
- The petition and vote will NOT ALLOW hard liquor sales.
- Restaurants and bars will still have to get a club license to serve on-premise beer/wine/alcohol in their establishment.
There’s more, so go read the rest. The Houston Heights Beverage Coalition now has a Facebook page if you’re into that sort of thing. Note that my embedded graphic is an inaccurate representation of what’s at issue here, but I don’t feel like finding something else. As The Heights Life notes, there are already plans for an HEB on Washington Avenue, which is outside the dry zone. A Heights-based HEB would surely be in the spot of the now-shuttered Fiesta on Shepherd, just inside the northern boundary of the zone. This only happens if the vote to alter the off-premise sales restriction passes.
As Campos notes, there’s been a lot of discussion on Heights Kids and Nextdoor about the petition effort and what it means, not all of it (in my opinion) very accurate. I’m sure that is what prompted this post by THL, to help clear things up. I’m going to do my part for that shortly, as I plan to interview Steve Reilley of the Houston Heights Beverage Coalition PAC; there are a bunch of process-related questions I’d like answered, among other things. The HHBC has reportedly collected a sufficient number of petition signatures, so assuming they are verified, some number of voters will have another item on which to vote this November. If an opposition group should form for this, I’ll do my best to interview a representative from that group as well. In the meantime, this is what we’ve got.