Request By:
Ms. Frankie S. Hager
City Attorney
City of Owensboro
P.O. Box 847
Owensboro, Kentucky 42302
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; Walter C. Herdman, Asst. Deputy Attorney General
This is in response to your letter of April 27 in which you relate that the City of Owensboro is considering the annexation of adjacent property whose owner voluntarily seeks the annexation. However, there is a local option problem concerning which you seek advice. You relate the following facts and question:
"The facts are these: The Atlantis Swim and Tennis Club requested annexation of two lots on the south side of Tamarack at Carter Road to develop into a private recreation facility (see attached map). Annexing these lots will leave a small enclave of county territory which houses a liquor store. The City of Owensboro's local option status is wet; however, Precinct 43, which will become the precinct of the Tamarack and Carter Road property if annexed, held a local option election in 1979 and voted itself dry.
KRS 242.190(2) states: 'Upon the annexation of any local option territory by a city, either before July 15, 1980, or subsequent thereto, the annexed territory shall assume the same local option status as the local option status of the annexing city . . .' (Emphasis added.)
My question is this: Does the annexed territory take on the local option status of the city, which is wet, as the statute says, or of the dry precinct of which it becomes a part?"
We agree with your conclusion that the annexed property which is proposed will take on the local option status of the precinct it is made a part of, in this case a dry precinct in view, in part, of the 1980 amendment to KRS 242.190(2) quoted in part above. In OAG 82-153, copy enclosed, this office had the reverse of this question involving the City of Owensboro, that is, the annexation of "dry" territory to a "wet" precinct, and we concluded that though the 1980 amendment referred to above did not cover a situation where the city had both "wet" and "dry" precincts, the annexed territory became "wet" though the question would be subject to litigation. Thus, in view of the referred to statute, we see no legal reason why the reverse situation would not be true in this instance, nor do we find any legal problem concerning the omission of this territory under the annexation statutes as long as the other territory to be annexed is contiguous to the city limits.