Voters in two regional shopping hubs in rural Alaska are on pace to loosen liquor rules after decades of prohibition.

On Tuesday, Bethel residents voted 543-482 to do away with the city's 32-year-old ban on liquor sales, according to an unofficial tally by the city clerk Wednesday afternoon. At least 114 ballots remain to be counted, the city says.

Key supporters of the proposal say they don't really want liquor stores or bars but grew fed up with state restrictions last winter when then-Gov. Sarah Palin proposed reducing how much alcohol people in Bethel and other "damp" communities could buy each month. Opponents, including the school district and regional health corporation, feared lifting the ban would flood surrounding villages with inexpensive liquor.

Bethel has been the largest community to forbid liquor sales. But towns and villages across Alaska have banned booze in an attempt to battle crippling rates of alcohol abuse, accidental death, suicide and domestic violence.

The other major liquor vote came in Kotzebue. A proposal to allow a city-run liquor store, bar or alcohol-serving restaurant was passing 389-353 there Wednesday, with 90 questioned or absentee votes still uncounted, according to the city.

"I think a lot of people realized that what we have right now wasn't working," said Willie Goodwin, chairman of the Kotzebue elders council.

But Goodwin and the elders council opposed the change.

The former mayor worries more alcohol will mean more people drowning, freezing to death or killing themselves in a region where the suicide rate is almost seven times the national average.

Kotzebue, population 3,100, banned liquor sales more than 20 years ago.

"The young people that didn't see what we had 21, 22 years ago don't have an idea of what happened back then," Goodwin said.

Calvin Schaeffer, a 43-year-old who pushed for the new rules, grew up in Kotzebue, 26 miles above the Arctic Circle. He remembers the bars, he said, and in some ways things are worse under the liquor-sale prohibition. Bootleggers prosper, and their favored import -- cheap Canadian whiskey -- lends itself to binge drinking, Schaeffer said.

"Even I grew up drinking a little bit, and we didn't drink straight shots out of the bottle," he said. "That was unheard of until the bars closed here. ... Now it's the common practice anywhere you go."

KOTZEBUE: BIG TURNOUT

With more than 800 total votes, the Kotzebue election drew twice as many voters as the previous city election, according to City Hall numbers.

Along with letting the city sell liquor, a potential revenue source for the local government, the ballot question also called for creation of a city-run distribution center and a city alcohol board to regulate sales.

Together, Kotzebue and Bethel serve as commercial and social service hubs for dozens of villages in western and northwestern Alaska. They're currently "damp," meaning booze can't be bought or sold in the city but can be ordered from somewhere else.

Police in both cities have said at least nine out of 10 crimes there are somehow alcohol-related.

In Kotzebue, Schaeffer argued that letting the city sell alcohol could increase local control. With all alcohol flowing through a local distribution center, it would be easier for police to track, and maybe the city could place a daily limit on alcohol sales, he said.

If the liquor vote stands, Goodwin would like to see sales restricted to Kotzebue residents, meaning people visiting from dry villages couldn't stock up.

Two of those Kotzebue-area villages conducted liquor elections of their own Tuesday.

Selawik voters rejected an attempt to lift the village liquor ban, 141-73, said city clerk Alice Mitchell.

In Kiana, an Inupiat village 57 miles east of Kotzebue on the Kobuk River, voters agreed to give up their ban. They approved a ballot question almost identical to the Kotzebue proposal, 78-58, according city clerk Crystal Johnson.

BETHEL: LOCAL CONTROL

Key backers of the Bethel proposition say they don't actually want the city to go wet.

Tom Hawkins, 60, was one of the 11 Bethel residents who signed a petition putting the question to a vote. He has said longtime residents frustrated by increasing state oversight launched the petition last winter after Palin supported a bill to cut local liquor-import limits in half.

State legislators pulled the tougher limits from the bill, which never reached a vote.

If Tuesday's Bethel vote holds, there won't be any monthly limit on the amount of alcohol residents can order.

Hawkins said Wednesday that petitioners will wait until after the city certifies the tally to comment on the election.

For now, supporters only had a short, prepared statement thanking people who voted and emphasizing "that we are not for the sale of alcohol in Bethel."

Major Bethel employers and organizations opposed the change.

The Lower Yukon Kuskokwim School District urged voters in late August to defeat the ballot question, citing the danger of increased under-age drinking and bootlegging in villages. The Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corp., which runs the Bethel hospital where authorities sometimes take drunks to sober up in the emergency room, passed a similar resolution Sept. 29.

While past efforts to tighten or loosen the local liquor rules have failed, YKHC Vice President Dan Winkelman said the city has grown in the past 10 to 20 years. It's still a largely Alaska Native community but is getting more diverse, he said.

"There's a lot of new people here with, you know, different interests and came out with a different result," he said.

Anyone who wants to sell alcohol in Bethel will have to get a liquor license through the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, which allows cities to protest applications.

Mark Springer, a YKHC grant writer and chairman of the city public safety and transportation commission, predicted the ballot question would pass.

"The prospect of being able to go and have dinner and a glass of wine and a couple of beers is attractive to a lot of people."

At the Shogun Restaurant, a busy eatery that serves everything from Japanese to Mexican food, co-owner Tom Valadez voted to remove the Bethel liquor-sale ban.

"I'd like to have Corona with my fish taco or some wine with my steak," he said.

He also plans to apply for a liquor license for his restaurant.

Read The Village, the ADN's blog about rural Alaska, at adn.com/thevillage. Twitter updates: twitter.com/adnvillage. Call Kyle Hopkins at 257-4334.

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