Granted, Chairman Kathy Morgan dropped the ball on this very important issue by not having it on the agenda to be talked about months ago, but we are still surprised by this ‘no’ vote.

In a poll conducted by Covington News on covnews.com, 73 percent of the respondents that lived in the county said that they would vote ‘yes’ for this ordinance if it were included on the Nov. 2 ballot.

The leader of the ‘no’ votes was Mort Ewing. Of any person serving on the board, we respect Ewing’s character and his honesty the most. We fully understand his moral views on drinking of any kind; he has never wavered on those beliefs.

He could have stood down and not voted, and he could have trusted the people of the county to do the right thing and vote for the good of the financial health of the county for their future. He did not — he chose to inflict his own personal views on the voters of the county. Again, we are disappointed in his decision — it is a reversal on what he had previously implied that he would do if a vote came up on this issue that was beneficial to the county: to stay neutral.

One other two ‘no’ votes came from J.C. Henderson, in whom we have absolutely no trust and who is currently under indictment. Henderson said he voted ‘no’ because more time was needed to hear from the voters of the county. For a man who is unemployed and claims he spends most of his time with his constituents, the reason for his answer makes no sense. This is typical for Mr. Henderson.

Ernest Simmons, whose district would probably benefit the most from a ‘yes’ vote, also voted ‘no.’

In our opinion, this was purely a spiteful vote in order to pay back his district for being wise enough not elect him back to office.

It was 12 years ago when this issue was last visited; the county voters at that time narrowly said ‘no’ by a 53 percent to 47 percent vote. We have no doubt that if given the opportunity to do so, the vote would be ‘yes’ this time.

We don’t support the passage of an alcohol ordinance because we think it would be nice to see little bars popping up all over the county. We support the vote going to the people for economic reasons. Without an ordinance like this one, there will be no nice restaurants coming our way — restaurants that can produce much needed tax revenue and attract people to come to our county to spend money and to provide our own citizens a place to go to in order to keep the money at home.

In the heart of La-La Land, San Francisco, has a plan in order to raise taxes. Their plan is a five cent tax on each drink that is poured. This will result in millions more dollars collected.

If we had the opportunity to vote on the county to allow restaurants to pour liquor, we could see a similar boost in revenue almost any time we wished. Rather, we could have if our moral gatekeepers had given us the chance to vote for this ordinance.

They did not, and in doing so did a disservice to residents of Newton County.