Although Tellico Village residents cast deciding votes to allow liquor sales in Loudon County, they are expressing their surprise they cannot have a liquor store in the Village.

"The people in Tellico Village thought, when they voted for this referendum, that there would be the availability to have a liquor store maybe out in this area," said Ned MacDonald, a Loudon County liaison for the Tellico Village Home Owners Association. "It wasn't publicized before the referendum that what you were voting for was to put a liquor store some place in Loudon city limits. Nobody really knew that this was what would happen until afterward."

"Talking to people in the Village the last few days - and explaining the law to them - they were all surprised that was the case," he said. "I don't know if it would have made any difference in the referendum, but it would have been nice to have the information published someway before the vote."

Tellico Villager Al Johnson said while he doesn't drink he still voted in favor of the liquor referendum. "To me, it's like buying groceries," he said. "If it's marketable to the general public, it ought to be marketable to Loudon County." Johnson, who came to the Village from Virginia, said many people in the community are from other areas where alcohol may be more common.

Villagers voted 4,250 to 797 to allow liquor sales. The county-wide vote was 10,880 - or 57.01 percent - allowing the sales to 8,203 - or 42.99 percent - against.

According to Lynn Mills, city manager for the City of Loudon, the state law requires liquor stores be placed inside the city limits of a municipality with a population of 1,000 or more.

Lenoir City, having a population of 6,819 in 2000, was required by the state to hold its own referendum, because its population is equal to or greater than the population of the smallest county in the state, which is Monroe County at 5,470.  Lenoir City voters decided 1,199 to 1,149 not to allow liquor sales inside its city limits. It will be two more years before another referendum can go back on the ballot. All those factors added together restrict liquor sales in the county to the city of Loudon.

"The section of the state law says it has to be within the corporate boundaries of a municipality with a population of over 1,000, and that rules out Greenback, Philadelphia or any other parts of Loudon County," Mills said. "Even in Knox County, the liquor stores there either have to be in the city of Knoxville or the city of Farragut. They can't be in any of the rural areas. That's why the package store in Farragut, which is right on the county line, is allowed."

A 2000 census report shows Loudon has a population of 4,476, Mills said. Meanwhile, Greenback has a population of 954 and Philadelphia has a population of 533.

"It is an opportunity to increase sales tax revenues for the city; but there is also the alcoholic beverage side of it that you have to have concerns about," Mills said, adding that the use of alcohol is also an individual decision people make.

"I know there were a lot of folks in Tellico Village who were surprised once they voted for this and it passed they weren't able to have a package store in Tellico Village," he said. "They didn't realize it was required to be located within the corporate boundaries of a city."

He said many, even in the City of Loudon, were under the assumption there could be one in Tellico Village.

"We hadn't done anything to make prior preparations for (liquor stores in the city), so we are having to play catch-up ourselves," Mills said. "There has been a lot of interest for this."

One interested person is Ed Bell, a long-time Loudon County resident and semi-retired banker. Bell, who has a consulting office in Knoxville, said he is applying for and focused on opening a liquor store with plans to put it on Highway 72, which would be pretty close to Tellico Village.
"I've worked on it for four years," he said.

Bell noted during the last city council meeting in Loudon there were several requests for money for ball fields, schools and even trees to plant on sidewalks. He said the people of Tellico Village see our tax dollars leaving.

"That's what we're looking at - bringing tax dollars back to Loudon," he said. "They need it, and Tellico Village people have been great in promoting this idea.

"All our tax dollars are leaving the county on the sale of alcoholic beverages," he said. "The counties surrounding us - every county around Loudon County with the exception of Monroe County has liquor stores."

If Tellico Village were a city, with a population of more than 6,000, package stores could be an option. In 2002, a committee in Tellico Village looked at incorporating but decided against it.

"My personal opinion is now that we are twice as big as then, maybe we should look at it again," MacDonald said. "Not that I'm saying we should do it, but maybe we should look at again."

A 2002 article from Gene Fischer, then a POA Board member, noted while there are possible windfalls of incorporating, there are also pitfalls. Many communities in Tellico Village are within three miles of an established city, and so would not be eligible for any initial incorporation, though they could be annexed later, the article noted. Kahite is not contiguous to the Village, and would not be included. It also questioned if the POA had the authority to spend as much as $40,000 of assessment money to investigate incorporation, and stated that a new Village city tax would be more expensive than the current assessment fees for some residents.