Voters OK restaurant sales, reject package sales on Sunday

Published 10:42 pm Tuesday, March 6, 2012

On Tuesday, City of Bainbridge voters narrowly approved a referendum to allow the Sunday sale of alcohol by the drink, but rejected another referendum that would have allowed Sunday package sales of alcohol.

According to unofficial results from the Decatur County Board of Elections, 659 voted “yes” on the Sunday alcohol by the drink referendum, while 650 voted “no.” In the Sunday package sales referendum, 691 voted “no” and 626 voted “yes.”

Tuesday’s election was also the presidential preference primary for Georgia, and Decatur County voters overwhelmingly preferred Newt Gingrich as the Republican candidate. According to the unofficial totals, Gingrich won Decatur County with 862 votes (40.13 percent). The next three highest candidates were Rick Santorum with 686 votes (31.94 percent), Mitt Romney with 464 votes (21.6 percent) and Ron Paul with 99 votes (4.61 percent).

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Georgia voters also approved Gingrich, according to the Associated Press. At press time, with 62 percent reporting in the state, Gingrich had 49 percent of the vote. His next closest competitor, Romney, had just 24 percent, and most major media outlets had declared Gingrich the winner.

Approximately 2,662 votes were cast in the county, out of 13,522 registered voters — for a voter turnout of 19.69 percent.