To the Editor:
The Elizabethton City Council this week approved an ordinance which would allow taverns, pubs, and breweries in downtown Elizabethton. There are some truths concerning alcohol we feel Council failed to see in their reasonings.
1..Almost every alcoholic will tell you that beer is the gateway drug to addiction. Do we want to provide more ways in more places for people to drink alcohol (beer), thereby enticing those who are susceptible to addiction? What could be more inviting, especially to the young and inexperienced, than a tavern atmosphere masquerading as “fun” and “fellowship?” The slide into alcoholism often begins deceptively in a party atmosphere.
2. After imbibing, every patron must find his way home, most often after dark. Whether one has drunk a little or a lot, he or she will most often get behind the wheel of a car and drive home in an altered state of thinking and perception, varying from slightly altered to severely inebriated. Do we want more drivers on the road who are driving at less than their best abilities or worse fully inebriated and capable of causing great harm to others?
3. These pubs and breweries boast that they will be serving alcohol only. With no food to slow the process of inebriation, does that formula not portend even more alcohol going straight to the brain and diminishing rational, reasonable thinking? Now who is deciding whether to have “one more,” but the one who is rapidly losing his faculties for rational thinking and reasoning. These patrons, too, must find their way home on our roads and streets, mostly after dark, when visibility is already impaired because of diminished light.
4. The boisterous atmosphere which often accompanies these establishments invites debauchery. Debauchery often includes damage to self, harm to others, and damage to the establishment and neighboring facilities.
5. As parents, husbands, wives spend hard-earned money on costly drinks that damage their health, their mental stability, and their family budget, who pays for the consequences as they seek medical treatment, addiction recovery, and financial aid from the government?
6. Tax revenue from businesses such as pubs, taverns, and breweries pales in comparison to the enormous costs on communities including increased police involvement, recovery programs, broken families, traffic accidents, destroyed relationships, poor health, and subsidized welfare programs. Teachers will tell you that children from homes with absent or alcoholic fathers have great difficulty achieving in school. Carter County and Elizabethton schools are already struggling in many areas of achievement, and already many children are living in homes without a mother or a father or a responsible guardian. Why would we make more opportunities for people to devote time, money, and energy to worthless activity rather than be devoted to their homes and families?
There are NO advantages and enormous sad consequences from inviting such into our community.
Galatians 6:7 (KJV) Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
We thank our council members for their service to our great community! I pray that they will work to keep it safe and wholesome for this generation and future generations to come.
Soli Deo Gloria!

Sincerely,
Julia F. Seward
Elizabethton