Local Option
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Local option is the freedom in the United States whereby local political jurisdictions, typically counties or municipalities, can decide by popular vote certain controversial issues within their borders. In practice, it usually relates to the issue of alcoholic beverage sales. As described by an encyclopedia in 1907, local option is the "license granted to the inhabitants of a district to extinguish or reduce the sale of intoxicants in their midst."
Local option regarding alcohol was first used in the temperance movement as a means to bring about prohibition gradually. The Anti-Saloon League initially decided to use local option as the mechanism to bring about nation-wide prohibition. Its intent was to work across the country at the local level.
Following the repeal of National Prohibition in 1933, some states chose to maintain prohibition within their own borders and some chose to permit local option on the controversial issue. In the remainder of states, there was no prohibition. Overlying this patchwork of prohibition, many states (known as alcoholic beverage control state) decided to establish their own monopolies over the wholesaling and/or retailing of alcoholic beverages. Montgomery County, Maryland has used local option to establish its alcohol control monopoly within its borders.
There are several hundred "dry" counties in states across the country.
[edit] Source
Based on materials in Alcohol: Problems and Solutions, which contains additional information.
This article incorporates text from the public domain 1907 edition of The Nuttall Encyclopædia.
