Over the past few years, Canton has made its case as a progressive, pragmatic, scrappy mill town fighting to attract new investments and new residents.

With the June 29 passage of Senate Bill 155, North Carolina became the 47th state in the union to allow alcohol service before noon on Sundays.

To date, most area governments that have heard a brunch bill ordinance have passed one. In other areas like Canton and Sylva, the ordinances still have a fighting chance.

As a room full of disappointed local business owners stood by, the Bryson City Board of Aldermen voted down a measure that would have extended alcohol sales on Sundays.

Before deciding whether to adopt a new statewide law allowing for earlier Sunday alcohol sales, the Franklin Town Council wants to have more input from the community.

Alcohol, alcoholism, and alcoholics appear frequently in literature.

Shakespeare’s Falstaff is a son of Bacchus. Lawrence Block’s Matthew Scudder and James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux are both detectives who emerge from the dark, beer-damp bars of New York and New Orleans, respectively, to join AA and battle their demons as well as murderers and thieves.

Bryson City Board of Aldermen has been discussing potential changes to alcohol regulations that could allow local businesses to sell earlier and later on Sundays.

Dave Angel hasn’t wasted any time becoming part of the Maggie Valley community and in return, they’ve welcomed Haywood County’s first distillery with open arms.

Elevated Mountain Distilling Company, located in the former Carolina Nights Dinner Theater building on Soco Road, opened Memorial Day weekend, and has had hundreds of visitors a week ever since. It is the first craft distillery to open in the counties west of Buncombe.

Residents and visitors may soon be able to enjoy a mimosa or bloody Mary during their Sunday morning brunch.

A new law passed in the North Carolina Legislature will give restaurants and distilleries an economic boost by allowing them to sell more of their own product.

The State of North Carolina has long had a conflicted relationship with alcohol; although largely unregulated during colonial times, it became an irritant to the agrarian, conservative majority of 19th-century voters who, like much of the nation, watched the ultimate administration thereof descend from federal to state to, finally, local authorities in the early 20th century. 

SEE ALSO:
• The alcohol permitting process
• A Spiritual Affair: The history of alcohol in Haywood County

Since then, cities and counties in North Carolina have come full circle, but continue to wrestle with a complex issue that includes social, economic, judicial and religious viewpoints overlaid by ever-present concerns about individualism, collectivism, traditionalism and progressivism.