WEST MARLBOROUGH: "Wet" Marlborough?

"Do you favor the granting of liquor licenses for the sale of liquor in West Marlborough Township?"
If supporters collect enough signatures on a petition, that question will appear on the ballot at the May 21 primary election in West Marlborough.
Spearheading the effort are the folks at the Thomforde family's Stone Barn on Upland Road, which has been operating for 51 years. The Foxfire Restaurant there is now a BYOB, and alcohol is served at the Stone Barn's banquets and receptions.
If it's successful, the referendum would reverse West Marlborough's decades-long "dry" status. Because of the wording of the statute, the sale of wine and spirits is forbidden in the township, although beer and cider can be sold (as they are at the Whip Tavern in Springdell).
On March 7 I stopped by the Stone Barn to find out more about the petition drive and interrupted general manager Alex Arnold vacuuming the dining room. We sat down together and Alex (her parents are Charlene Thomforde and Kevin Arnold) explained that having a liquor license would allow them to have more control over the liquor that people bring to the facility.
"It's difficult to tell people what to do when, after all, it's their liquor," she said. They also want to be able to serve locally produced cider, beer, wine and spirits, in keeping with their farm-to-table philosophy (say, a mojito made with locally made rum).
Alex told me that the family has held off on trying to overturn the prohibition on liquor sales because her Quaker ancestors are the ones who originally helped to enact it in West Marlborough in 1937 after Prohibition was repealed nationally. Quakerism is historically opposed to drinking, gambling, and smoking.
"It's a little ironic," she admitted. "But I think they'd understand. The township has shifted from the Prohibition-era mindset to come with the times."
At the township meeting on March 5, Chef Franco Alvisi (who is also Alex Arnold's husband) circulated a petition and asked audience members to sign. They need to collect 105 signatures by a March 12 deadline (that number is the result of a complicated formula involving the number of voters who voted for the most important office on the ballot in the previous even-year election in the township).