To view our videos, you need to
enable JavaScript. Learn how.
install Adobe Flash 9 or above. Install now.

Then come back here and refresh the page.

MCADENVILLE, N.C. – It won't become Christmas Town USA for another two months but McAdenville will still get some attention Tuesday when voters will decide in a special election whether beer, wine and mixed drinks can be sold in the Gaston County town.

People on both sides of the issue have been outspoken.

"It means the difference between stagnating and millions of dollars in investment," said four-year resident Kevin Lamp.

"No good thing comes of alcohol," the Rev. Walter Griggs, a Baptist pastor, said.

Lamp helped start a petition drive to get the issue on the ballot for the town's roughly 400 eligible voters.

"We want to be able to have the kinds of things that other towns in the area have without necessarily having to drive to go get a drink," he said.

Supporters of the measure in McAdenville point to Cramerton, their neighboring town across Highway 29-74, where voters approved alcohol sales in 2006.

"We serve alcohol and we've done it properly,” said Kathleen Hover, who owns Center Street Tavern, one of several businesses that have popped up in downtown Cramerton since the alcohol vote passed.

Griggs, on the other hand, sees it as a moral attack on the city. He and others want to keep the town quiet, quaint and dry.

"I believe it will become more commercialized. I believe we will end up with the vices which come with alcohol," he said.

Those on both sides of the issue expect the vote to be close.