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I'll drink to that. If you get mixed drinks you'll likely get a Ruby Tuesday in Mayodan too.

I hope the citizens of Mayodan understand the gravity of this vote! If Mayodan is to grow and have revenues help residential property owners keep their taxes down, we must vote for mixed beverages on May 6th. If this vote is defeated again, Mayodan will have to wait three more years and by then the firms interested in our area of growth will have moved on and lost interest in our town. Wake up Mayodan, vote Yes for this important issue. It is a personal choice. You can enjoy restaurants without drinking a mixed drink. People do it every day in Greensboro, Martinsville, Reidsville, and Eden.

Cheers to that! I support the changing the mixed-beverage law, not only because it's an example of government babysitting adults, but also because it will encourage much-needed business on the 220 corridor near Walmart and the new Lowe's. But I do NOT support the proposed increase in county sales tax that's on the May 6 ballot. For an area that pays GSO-level property taxes without the GSO-level earnings, asking us to pony up more cash on a daily basis is unreasonable.

Rockingham is $1 million short on its budget, which is part of the sales tax rationale, in addition to funding school construction. Maybe Madison-Mayodan could reconsider building that $3 million library and allocate the money to the school construction/renovation line instead, considering the Madison branch is only open maybe two days a week as it is, and even then is only sparsely utilized. (One pro-library argument is that we need a big meeting room for community groups. Heck, they can meet at my house if it'll save us $3 mil!) Sorry for the thread hijack, but the sales tax and library issues have me steamed. Nothing against libraries, except that in this form they're increasingly archaic institutions.

If we're going to be expected to pay for a combined library, we'll need tax dollars from somewhere - either new businesses and sales tax, revenues from hotels/restaurants, etc. - or the poor residential citizen is going to have to foot another bill. All the more reason to vote for the liquor by the drink issue. Bring in more businesses. Again, Mayodan better think long and hard and vote for something to get us more businesses. The local industries are going to get awful tired of lodging their executives in Greensboro, renting cars to run them up and down 220, when they could easily have a hotel and restaurants here. Incentives paid to those industries will surely be wasted money if they pick up and leave to go where there is housing and meeting space and restaurants for their traveling sales people, executives, business associates, etc.

I don't live in Mayodan and I didn't even know they served mixed drinks at Ruby Tuesdays. I just went for the salad bar.

Answer me this:

If serving mixed drinks is the panacea for high taxes, then why is Greensboro soaking me every year?

Earnestine:
I don't know about Greensboro, but Rockingham County has lost at least 7,661 manufacturing jobs in the past 20 years. Unifi was a huge hit to Mayodan by closing three plants in Mayodan alone. We need jobs. If those jobs have to be in the restaurant, hotel, service business, then so be it. Those type of businesses will also trickle down to maintenance and service contracts for cleaning, heating & air, construction, and others types of jobs. Mixed beverages isn't the cure-all, but it is a tool to help Mayodan assist in keeping our property taxes and water rates reasonable.