Logan residents to vote on sales of beer and wine

Voters in the village of Logan in a few weeks will receive ballots in the mail to decide whether to allow the sale of beer and wine at restaurants there.

The language in the June 4 special election will read: “Shall the issuance of restaurant license for the sale of beer and wine be allowed within the local option district in the Village of Logan?”

Mama T’s restaurant, which is moving in May into the former Whiskey: The Road to Ruin building a few hundred feet from its old location on U.S. 54, requested the election.

“Because the Road to Ruin has been a bar for a long time, we feel that it is the best way to keep the tradition of the building alive,” Mama T’s general manager Brian Cox stated in an email.

The Road to Ruin building previously was an Eagles club until it closed in July 2018. According to the Tucumcari Historical Museum, the building also once was The Ranch Bar, owned by Mae Cobb. The bar later changed its name to Whiskey: The Road to Ruin. Before that, it was Johnson Mercantile.

The requested Mama T’s license would be different from The Annex Bar-B-Q and Grill, which is attached to a convenience store and has a distributor license for alcohol. It also would be different license than other convenience stores along U.S. 54 in the village that sell package liquor, said Rosalie Rachor, Logan village clerk and treasurer.

Such restaurant beer-and-wine licenses forbid the business from earning more than 40 percent of its revenue from alcohol, she said.

Logan residents can register to vote for the special election until 5 p.m. May 7 at the Quay County Clerk’s Office in Tucumcari. Rachor estimated about 850 people are registered to vote in Logan.

Rachor said ballots would be mailed to residents on or about May 7. She had no firm estimates on the election’s cost for the mail-in special election, except it will exceed $2,000.

If approved by voters, it remains uncertain how long it would take for Mama T’s to receive a license to serve beer and wine from the state’s Department of Alcohol and Gaming. An email to the agency went unanswered.

The last time Logan held an election involving liquor sales occurred in 2012, when residents voted whether to allow by-the-drink sales on Sundays. It passed 113-72.