When Dillsboro voters go to the poll this fall, many will be focused on an election other than the town board — they’ll be voting on whether restaurants in Dillsboro can serve beer and wine.

Diners can brown bag — the term for bringing your own beer and wine into a restaurant — but restaurants can’t serve it.

While the issue is up to the voters and has nothing to do with the elected board, it hasn’t stopped candidates from weighing in. Alderman Bud Smith said he is “all for the beer and wine.”

Smith runs a gift shop and gallery and said the concept of brown bagging sounds crazy and foreign to tourists who have never encountered towns that prohibit beer and wine sales in restaurants.

“When I tell people they can brown bag they look at me like ‘Huh? What is this guy talking about?’” Smith said. Walking into a restaurant with your own booze in a bag isn’t attractive to the clientele Dillsboro draws, he said.

“The restaurants lose out on several patrons going to Sylva,” said Jim Dukes, an alderman candidate and the developer of Dillsboro Crossing townhouse and condo subdivision.

Dukes said patrons who have a glass of wine at a meal would linger longer at shops or stay over the weekend.

“I think it would have a bigger trickle down effect,” Dukes said.

— By Becky Johnson