Church Ordered To Remove Controversial Anti-Liquor Advertisement

Waynesville town officials told a local church on Monday to take down an anti-liquor display featuring a car demolished in a deadly wreck because it broke local sign rules. The N.C. Highway Patrol even got involved, sending a trooper by twice to tell church leaders that the display in front of their building would be towed if it wasn’t moved from the public right of way.

The church’s pastor said the real reason wasn’t the law but politics. “This is about the mayor and the Board of Aldermen,” said the Rev. Jack Holland, of Barberville Baptist Church on Russ Avenue. “They just wanted it out of the public view. It is just part of the spiritual warfare.”

The advertisement urges people to vote against “liquor by the drink” in the May 6 referendum. Church member Jerry Hightower hopes the church’s message sinks in with voters. “We hope people will look at it and realize what liquor can do or what drinking can do, not just liquor but any type of alcohol,” he said. “When it’s consumed to the body, the body don’t think, the mind don’t think.”