Liquor will

be on the agenda as the Fayetteville City Council meets

Tuesday night.

Council

will discuss whether to give voters a chance to decide on

legalizing liquor by the drink in the city's Nov. 2

election.

Lane Brown,

a local Realtor, has been circulating a petition to force

the question onto the ballot, but time has run out, and

Brown says he is about 100 signatures short of the

required number.

State law

requires that alcohol questions be placed on the ballot

if 35 percent of the registered voters sign a petition.

Brown said he has about 1,650 signatures and may be able

to get the rest within a week or two.

"I

will continue going on. The petitions are coming in a

little slower," said Brown. "I just don't know

if we've got enough time."

City clerk

Judy Stephens answered that question. "We would need

60 days to verify the signatures and get it on the

ballot," she said. "Sept. 3 would be the last

day."

City

Council can, by majority vote, put the question on the

ballot without a petition, and that's what Brown is

asking the group to do.

If council

refuses, Brown said he will keep working to force the

issue through petition, but that will require a special

election at additional expense to the city taxpayers.

"I'm

still having trouble with this," said Councilman

Kenneth Steele during a work session Wednesday. "We

had an election five years ago and it was turned down. We

have a petition for referendum and Lane has not gotten

sufficient signatures."

Brown

pointed out that hundreds of new residents have moved to

Fayetteville since the last vote on the liquor question.

And the referendum failed by only a handful of votes the

last time, he said.

During the

work session, council discussed the possibility of

setting up a liquor pouring zone in its historic Main

Street District to bolster revitalization efforts there,

but there was little sentiment for placing the issue on

the ballot without a petition.

Councilman

Glenn Brewer pointed out, though, that Mayor Mike Wheat

and Councilman Larry Dell were absent from the work

session, and suggested keeping the item on the agenda for

Tuesday's business meeting so the full council would have

a chance to discuss it.

The meeting

is normally conducted on first Mondays, but has been

moved to Tuesday this week because of the Labor Day

holiday.