CONWAY REVIVAL GROUND ZERO: Mikes Place (and its booze permit.)

  • CONWAY REVIVAL GROUND ZERO: Mike’s Place (and its booze permit.)

Time magazine’s Joe Klein passed through Arkansas recently and his stops included a visit in Conway, which produced a post on the Swampland blog.

Advertisement

“You are sitting in a room with visionaries,” Mike Coats, the proprietor of Mike’s Place, told me. The visionaries looked pretty average old-fashioned American to me—a small city mayor, a small city Chamber of Commerce manager, a lawyer, a furniture store owner, a young African-American employee of Hewlett Packard. But they had done something entirely radical: they had launched a campaign to revive their city, and a big part of that campaign had been to convince the state liquor authority to allow Mike Coats to sell booze by the glass. The revival of Conway, Arkansas—using federal funds, including earmarks (!)—is the sort of story we don’t hear much anymore in this Tea-tinged anti-government environment, but it contains some important lessons.

Well, Conway shakers hurry to say downtown Conway was not rebuilt by booze alone. Federal money certainly didn’t hurt, though Conway and surrounding territory is a Tea Party hotbed. They hate government spending, see. Mayor Tab Townsell was quoted:

I asked the mayor if all this government activism had gotten the attention of the Tea Party. “Well yes, there’s been some pushback,” he said. “The Tea Party folks think the price tag has been too high, but they’re a minority.”

2012 may give a handy measure of Townsell’s assessment. I wrote Jamie Gates to inquire whether a photo existed of this gathering to accompany this item. Alas, no, but he made several points, which I’ve edited below:

Advertisement

Arkansas Times: Your voice in the fight

Are you tired of watered-down news and biased reporting? The Arkansas Times has been fighting for truth and justice for 50 years. As an alternative newspaper in Little Rock, we are tough, determined, and unafraid to take on powerful forces. With over 63,000 Facebook followers, 58,000 Twitter followers, 35,000 Arkansas blog followers, and 70,000 daily email blasts, we are making a difference. But we can't do it without you. Join the 3,400 paid subscribers who support our great journalism and help us hire more writers. Sign up for a subscription today or make a donation of as little as $1 and help keep the Arkansas Times feisty for years to come.

Previous article Let yourself go to Clinton Library Next article The prospects for 2012 in Congress