Dear Editor:

As a Lincoln County resident living in the Wesson zip code not far from the site of Co-Lin Community College, I take offense at Daily Leader letter-to-the-editor writers who arrogantly boast about Brookhaven’s somehow superior “quality of life” because there are currently no liquor sales in the city.

Two liquor package stores do not make for a negative quality of life in Wesson, which rather offers special cultural benefits unique for a town its size because of the community college.

I do not know McComb and Natchez as well as Wesson, but I enjoy quality restaurants in both of Brookhaven’s neighboring cities largely because they permit liquor-by-the-glass sales.

Nor do I perceive that liquor package stores make for a quality of life inferior to Brookhaven’s in McComb or Natchez.

Liquor sales, of course, can have a negative impact on a community if they are not properly enforced, but they are often associated with fine dining, quality entertainment, and expanded business opportunities (related to restaurants and lodging enterprises) which some of us consider components of quality of life.

It is outrageous to suggest that Brookhaven citizens are shirking a moral responsibility to their community if they vote to add a new dimension to the city’s current quality of life by approving liquor sales.

I doubt that liquor sales in Brookhaven will either please or displease God, but to those who would invoke the Divinity in arguing their case on this local issue, I would urge them to consider St. Paul’s counsel on quality of life to Timothy in a letter about the principles of good ministry: “No longer drink only water, but take a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments.” (I Timothy 5:23).

Bob Arnold

Wesson