In a last minute, dark of night vote, legislators approved an amendment to a vague bill that would permit liquor stores to locate within the boundaries of Tellico Village.

The amendment was sponsored by Ken Yager of Kingston, who does not represent any of Loudon County and carried by Kent Calfee who does not represent Tellico Village or Loudon. County commissioners were not informed of the legislation and have still not been informed about such a drastic change in the law that effects Loudon County. Calfee did say on the floor of the house during the discussion that he had contacted the "county mayor and some of those folks" and they were fine with it. Not sure who "some of those folks" are but it wasn't county commission. No one seems to know who, locally, asked for the legislation.

Aside from the obvious problem of adding more liquor stores to the county, the addition of liquor stores to Tellico Village will likely, negatively impact the two liquor stores currently in the city of Loudon. Tellico Village will now be the only place in the state where liquor stores will be located outside the boundaries of a city.

What state legislators have effectively  done, is open the door for any neighborhood subdivision in the state to request their own legislation to open liquor stores.

Some agency on the state level should really investigate this legislation to see exactly how such sham deal came about.

If state legislators can supersede all local government and elections, maybe we should just disband local governments and let the state run everything. This was wrong on so many levels. I suspect we'll be hearing lots more about this story.