By Greg Ford

Staff Writer

[email protected]

SACHSE — Residents will have the chance in November to decide whether to expand liquor sales within the city limits.

The city council voted unanimously, and with little discussion, to hold a Local Option Election on Nov. 7 regarding the legal sale of fine wine and spirits in package stores. Fine wine is defined as wine with an alcoholic content of more than 17 percent. Currently wine sold in Sachse can be no more than 14 percent alcohol.

The decision to conduct the election culminates a petition drive that was started back in April by the Sachse Committee on Economic growth, and which resulted in 235 pages of petition signatures being submitted to the city, according to Sachse city secretary Michelle Lewis Sirianni.

Sirianni verified 2,103 qualified voters signed the petitions, with the requirement being 1,834 to conduct a special election.

The petition drive began April 11 and needed to gather 1,800 signatures in 60 days, June 9, in order to call for an election. The 1,800 signatures are equal to 35 percent of the voters who participated in the last gubernatorial election. The group, Texas Petition Strategies of Austin, was hired to collect the signatures.

Co-chairmen Darrell Lensch, Jeanie Marten and Linda Gray head the committee that oversaw the petition drive, and that committee hired Texas Petition Strategies of Austin to gather the signatures.

“In 2005, Sachse voters approved beer and wine sales in our grocery stores and restaurants, and now we’ve seen many neighboring communities vote to allow fine wine and spirit sales like in Plano and Rowlett,” Lensch said during the April 11 press conference.

Staff writer Joe Reavis contributed to this article