Can Jacksonville, Arkansas dissolve the absorbed-but-still-dry Gray Township without going to the General Assembly?
Plain-English summary
Representative Perry asked the AG how the City of Jacksonville could eliminate the lingering effects of Gray Township, which is "functionally defunct" after being absorbed into Jacksonville but still continues to impose alcohol restrictions that conflict with city and county rules. Gray Township voted dry in 1954 and remains so to this day, even after annexation.
The AG concluded that Arkansas law provides no mechanism for a defunct voting district to fully shed its alcohol restrictions. Act 1018 of 2013 created a local-option election procedure for defunct voting districts, but the procedure covers only on-premises sales of beer, malt beverages, vinous beverages, and spirituous liquor. It does not authorize a vote to legalize off-premises sales (retail package sales, manufacturing). To get rid of the dry status for all purposes, the General Assembly would need to amend the law.
The opinion also clarifies that Gray Township is not a current "legal municipal entity" that can be repealed; the township ceased operating as a township when it was annexed. The only "legal status" it retains is as a defunct voting district under A.C.A. § 3-8-601(2) for alcohol-law purposes.
What this means for you
If you are a Jacksonville official
Hold a local-option election under Act 1018 to authorize on-premises alcohol sales in the Gray Township area. That covers restaurants, bars, and similar businesses serving alcohol on-site. To allow off-premises sales (liquor stores, grocery-store beer/wine), you need to lobby for state-level statutory amendment.
If you own or want to open a business in the former Gray Township area
On-premises alcohol service may be possible via local-option election under Act 1018. Off-premises retail sales are not authorized without legislative action.
If you are a state legislator from the affected district
A statutory amendment expanding Act 1018's local-option mechanism to include off-premises sales would resolve the issue across the state, not just Jacksonville. Several other Arkansas municipalities likely face similar situations after annexation of historically dry townships.
Common questions
Q: What is a "defunct voting district"?
A: A.C.A. § 3-8-601(2) defines it as a voting district that no longer functions as a political subdivision. Many Arkansas townships absorbed by annexation fall into this category. The legal status survives only for purposes of historic alcohol restrictions.
Q: Why does the dry status survive annexation?
A: Because the local-option vote applies to the geographic territory of the voting district as it existed at the time of the vote. Annexation by another political subdivision does not automatically modify the alcohol restriction. The boundary line of the original dry vote is what matters.
Q: What can a local option election under Act 1018 do?
A: Authorize on-premises sales of beer, malt, vinous, and spirituous beverages by license-holders in defunct voting districts. It does not authorize off-premises retail package sales or alcohol manufacturing.
Citations and references
Statutes:
- A.C.A. § 3-8-601(2)
- Act 1018 of 2013
Cases:
- Alcoholic Beverage Control Div. v. Barnett, 285 Ark. 189 (1985)
- Taylor v. Spence, 224 Ark. 223 (1954)
Source
Official summary
Question 1: May the legal status of Gray Township be repealed or deemed extinguished due to its absorption into the City’s municipal government?
Question 2: How may the City legally repeal Gray Township and remove its lingering restrictions on the area in question?
Question 3: Beyond those mentioned, are there any other alternatives to terminating the status of Gray Township?
Brief Response: To answer all three questions together, current law provides no mechanism for a defunct voting district like Gray Township to become completely “wet” for purposes of the on- and off-premises manufacture, sale, and consumption of alcohol without legislative action. Under Act 1018 of 2013, the General Assembly has authorized local option elections for defunct voting districts, but only for the sale of beer, malt beverages, vinous beverages, and spiritous liquor for on-premises consumption. Therefore, complete dissolution of the township’s remaining alcohol restrictions requires an amendment to existing law by the General Assembly.
Original opinion text
BOB R. BROOKS JR. JUSTICE BUILDING
101 WEST CAPITOL AVENUE
LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS 72201
Opinion No. 2026-021
May 11, 2026
The Honorable Mark W. Perry
State Representative
2 Crestview Plaza
Jacksonville, Arkansas 72076
Dear Representative Perry:
I am writing in response to your request for my opinion concerning the process for dissolving
defunct townships.
You report that while Gray Township is “functionally defunct and fully absorbed by” the City of
Jacksonville’s government—lacking its own “governance, elections, or operational authority”—it
“continues to impose alcohol restrictions that conflict” with those of the city and the county
wherein the township sits.
1 Consequently, the city “seeks the complete repeal or legal
extinguishment” of the township, including “any residual authority that it is purported to exercise.”
In light of these circumstances, you ask three questions:
1. May the legal status of Gray Township be repealed or deemed extinguished due to its
absorption into the City’s municipal government?
2. How may the City legally repeal Gray Township and remove its lingering restrictions on
the area in question?
3. Beyond those mentioned, are there any other alternatives to terminating the status of Gray
Township?
Brief response: To answer all three questions together, current law provides no
mechanism for a defunct voting district like Gray Township to become
completely “wet” for purposes of the on- and off-premises manufacture,
sale, and consumption of alcohol without legislative action. Under Act
1 For purposes of this opinion, I will assume that “absorbed by” the city means that Gray Township is not currently a
“township” under county government and has been “annexed” into the city under the applicable statute.
TIM GRIFFIN
ATTORNEY GENERAL
The Honorable Mark W. Perry
State Representative
Opinion No. 2026-021
Page 2
1018 of 2013, the General Assembly has authorized local option elections
for defunct voting districts, but only for the sale of beer, malt beverages,
vinous beverages, and spiritous liquor for on-premises consumption.
Therefore, complete dissolution of the township’s remaining alcohol
restrictions requires an amendment to existing law by the General
Assembly.
DISCUSSION
Question 1: May the legal status of Gray Township be repealed or deemed extinguished due to
its absorption into the City’s municipal government?
Question 2: How may the City legally repeal Gray Township and remove its lingering
restrictions on the area in question?
Question 3: Beyond those mentioned, are there any other alternatives to terminating the status
of Gray Township?
1. Alcohol law. Based on the information provided in your opinion request, the only “legal status”
that Gray Township appears to have is that of a “defunct voting district” for purposes of alcohol
law, including local option elections.
2 There is no indication that Grey Township presently exists
as a legal municipal entity—like a township, district, town, or political subdivision—that could be
repealed or extinguished.
Although Gray Township is no longer a distinct municipal entity, it appears to have at one time
been a township before being annexed by more than one city. While operating as a township, Gray
Township held a local option election in 1954, and the citizens voted to prohibit the sale of
alcoholic beverages, rendering the township “dry.”3 Two years later, the county judge changed the
boundaries of multiple townships, which enlarged Gray Township.4 Following that boundary
2 See A.C.A. § 3-8-601(2).
3 Alcoholic Beverage Control Div. v. Barnett, 285 Ark. 189, 189–90, 685 S.W.2d 511, 512 (1985); see also Taylor v.
Spence, 224 Ark. 223, 223, 272 S.W.2d 437, 437 (1954) (concerning the appeal of the results for the original Gray
Township local option election in Pulaski County, where the Arkansas Supreme Court held that the petition was not
invalid).
4 Barnett, 285 Ark. at 190, 685 S.W.2d at 512.
The Honorable Mark W. Perry
State Representative
Opinion No. 2026-021
Page 3
change, the township held another local option election in 1956 “as newly composed, and the drys
won.”5
Generally, under Arkansas alcohol law, once a county has voted “dry,” no subdivision of that
county—including a township—can vote to become “wet.”
6 The Arkansas Supreme Court has
consistently upheld this rule.7 Conversely, when a county is “wet,” its political subdivisions may
vote on a subdivision-by-subdivision basis to determine whether to become “dry.”8
Importantly, an area that was previously voted “dry” does not automatically become “wet” when
“absorbed,” or annexed, into a municipality that is “wet” within its boundaries. Thus, even defunct
voting districts that were previously voted “dry”—such as the Gray Township—remain “dry” until
either a local option election is held, or the General Assembly amends the current law and creates
another avenue to change that area’s status from “dry” to “wet.”
For example, in 2013, the General Assembly authorized local elections for defunct voting districts,
but only for the on-premises manufacture, sale, and consumption of alcohol.
9
In Opinion 2025-
015, I discussed this legal process in detail. The General Assembly has not authorized local option
elections in defunct voting districts to remove all “lingering restrictions,” which would allow both
on- and off-premises manufacture, sale, and consumption of alcoholic beverages.
The sole exception was Act 671 of 2023, which was not codified and expired on December 31,
2024. That Act temporarily authorized a “wet city that has annexed a portion of a defunct
township” to “hold a one-time local option election within the boundaries of the annexed area
within the defunct township” to allow for the sale of alcoholic beverages for off-premises
consumption.
Thus, for areas like Gray Township—which has been partially annexed by more than one city and
no longer exercises any governmental powers—the only currently available mechanism to hold a
local option election is found in Act 1018 of 2018, which applies only to the on-premises
manufacture, sale, and consumption of alcohol beverages. Converting any portion of Gray
Township from “dry” to “wet” for both on- and off-premises purposes would require the General
Assembly to amend the law.
5
Id.
6 A.C.A. § 3-8-305.
7 See Bates v. Mikles, 309 Ark. 551, 552, 832 S.W.2d 225, 226 (1992); Carter v. Reamey, 232 Ark. 211, 213–14, 335
S.W.2d 298, 299–300 (1960); Tabor v. O'Dell, 212 Ark. 902, 904, 208 S.W.2d 430, 431 (1948); Denniston v. Riddle,
210 Ark. 1039, 1046, 199 S.W.2d 308, 312 (1947).
8 A.C.A. § 3-8-305.
9 Act 1018 of 2013, codified at A.C.A. §§ 3-8-601 to -602.
The Honorable Mark W. Perry
State Representative
Opinion No. 2026-021
Page 4
For the reasons discussed below, a municipality cannot pass a local ordinance or take other action
concerning alcoholic beverages that would be inconsistent with or prohibited by state statute.
2. Municipal authority. Cities, towns, and other municipalities “are creatures of the legislature”
and have only powers as delegated to them by the General Assembly.10 This expressly delegated
authority includes both the broad “police power” and statutory “Home Rule,” which is the general
power to act concerning “municipal affairs.”11
2.1. Police power. The police power is the power inherent in state sovereignty and is not a
grant derived from any constitution.12 Although municipalities do not inherently have this power,13
the General Assembly has expressly delegated it to them. The “police power” delegated to
municipalities is the power to “make and publish bylaws and ordinances, not inconsistent with the
laws of this state, which, as to them, shall seem necessary to provide for the safety, preserve the
health, promote the prosperity, and improve the morals, order, comfort, and convenience of such
corporations and the inhabitants thereof.”14
2.2. “Municipal affairs” vs. “state affairs.” Under A.C.A. § 14-43-602(a), cities, towns, and
other municipalities are also “authorized to perform any function and exercise full legislative
power in any and all matters of whatsoever nature pertaining to its municipal affairs,” if the
legislation is not “contrary to the general laws of the state.”15
“Alcoholic beverages” are expressly
“state affairs” and not “municipal affairs.”16 A city, however, “may legislate upon” such “state
affairs … if not in conflict with state law.”17
10 Ark. Const. art. 12, § 4; Phillips v. Town of Oak Grove, 333 Ark. 183, 189, 968 S.W.2d 600, 603 (1998).
11 A.C.A. § 14-43-602 (allowing municipalities to “perform any function and exercise full legislative power in any
and all matters of whatsoever nature pertaining to its municipal affairs”); see also Ark. Att’y Gen. Op. 2012-051
(surveying the applicable statutes and case law).
12 Geurin v. City of Little Rock, 203 Ark. 103, 155 S.W.2d 719, 721 (1941); see also Thomas M. Cooley, A Treatise
on the Constitutional Limitations Which Rest Upon the Legislative Power of the State of the American Union 831–32
(7th ed. 1903) (“In the American constitutional system, the power to establish the ordinary regulations of police has
been left with the individual States, and it cannot be taken from them, either wholly or in part, and exercised under
legislation of Congress,” and the “national government” cannot “assume any supervision of the police regulations of
the States.”).
13 Eugene McQuillin, The Law of Municipal Corporations § 24:6 (3d ed. 2024).
14 A.C.A. § 14-55-102 (emphasis added).
15 Ark. Const. art. 12, § 4.
16 See A.C.A. 14-43-601(a)(1)(K).
17 A.C.A. § 14-43-601(a)(2)(B).
The Honorable Mark W. Perry
State Representative
Opinion No. 2026-021
Page 5
3. State preemption. State statutes can preempt municipal ordinances in three ways:18 (1) express
preemption;19 (2) field preemption;20 and (3) conflict preemption.21 First, express preemption
occurs when the text of a statute expressly forecloses local legislation on the topic. Second, field
preemption occurs when the breadth of state regulation indicates that the General Assembly
intends to “hold the field” of a particular area of law, or regulate “an area completely so as to not
leave reasonable room for local regulation.”22 “The General Assembly should be clear when it
intends to pre-empt a field that otherwise could be validly regulated by … ordinance.”23 This
clarity is necessary because Arkansas’s Home Rule Act grants municipalities broad authority to
regulate unless the regulation is “in conflict with state law.”24 Last, conflict preemption occurs
when an ordinance is contrary to or irreconcilable with state statutes,25 or when it is less restrictive
than state statutes.26
4. State authority. The Twenty-First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which repealed
nationwide alcohol prohibition, gives States significant “control over whether to permit
importation or sale of liquor and how to structure the liquor distribution system,”27 subject to
constitutional limitations.28 And apart from the Twenty-First Amendment, a State may regulate
alcoholic beverages under its police powers.29 The police power includes the authority to “establish
and enforce all regulations reasonable and necessary to secure the health, safety[,] and general
18 Preemption for state laws largely mirrors the doctrine of federal preemption. See, e.g., Kollmeyer v. Greer, 267 Ark.
632, 636, 593 S.W.2d 29, 31 (1980) (noting that a situation concerning a state statute and a local ordinance was
“comparable to the federal doctrine of pre-emption that is utilized in reconciling federal law with any state law that
seeks to regulate the same subject matter”).
19 See, e.g., McNeill, 120 S.W.3d at 608–09; Kollmeyer, 267 Ark. at 636–37, 593 S.W.2d at 30–32; Ark. Att’y Gen.
Op. 2015-088.
20 See, e.g., Ark. Att’y Gen. Ops. 2015-088 (reviewing a state statute that “prohibits localities from regulating in th[e]
field” of “antidiscrimination law”), 2005-129 (“The State may preempt any local legislative authority by regulating
an area completely so as not to leave reasonable room for local regulation.”).
21 Kollmeyer, 267 Ark. at 637, 593 S.W.2d at 31 (holding that certain local ordinances were “inconsistent [with] and
in conflict with” certain state statutes).
22 E.g., Ark. Att’y Gen. Ops. 2015-088, 2005-129.
23 Kollmeyer, 267 Ark. at 637, 593 S.W.2d at 31.
24 A.C.A. § 14-43-601(a)(2)(B).
25 E.g., Tompos v. City of Fayetteville, 280 Ark. 435, 437–38, 658 S.W.2d 404, 406 (1983).
26 E.g., Ark. Att’y Gen. Op. 86-086.
27 U.S. Const. amend. XXI; California Retail Liquor Dealers Ass’n v. Midcal Aluminum, Inc., 445 U.S. 97, 110 (1980).
28 44 Liquormart, Inc. v. Rhode Island, 517 U.S. 484, 516 (1996).
29 See, e.g., id. at 515–16.
The Honorable Mark W. Perry
State Representative
Opinion No. 2026-021
Page 6
welfare of the community.”30 Courts will review a State’s exercise of its police powers to
determine whether it is “rationally related to achieving any legitimate governmental objective
under any reasonably conceivable fact situation,” subject to constitutional limitations (like a
State’s regulations under the Twenty-First Amendment).31
5. Conclusion. In my opinion, a municipality cannot pass a local ordinance or otherwise take
action to repeal or extinguish the “dry” status of a defunct voting district so as to render it
completely “wet” because doing so would conflict with the existing statutory framework
governing alcohol regulation. While the General Assembly has authorized limited exceptions, as
discussed above, no current statue permits a municipality to remove all remaining alcohol
restrictions applicable to a defunct voting district. Only the General Assembly can amend the
existing law and provide a mechanism to eliminate those restrictions.
Assistant Attorney William R. Olson prepared this opinion, which I hereby approve.
Sincerely,
TIM GRIFFIN
Attorney General
30 Hogue v. Hous. Auth. of N. Little Rock, 201 Ark. 263, 144 S.W.2d 49, 55 (1940).
31 Brennan v. White Cnty., 2019 Ark. App. 146, 6–7, 573 S.W.3d 577, 582–83; see also Tennessee Wine & Spirits
Retailers Ass’n v. Thomas, 588 U.S. 504, 538 (2019) (noting that a court will also review “the actual purpose and
effect of a challenged law”).