Editing Owsley County, Kentucky (section)

==Alcohol prohibition==
Although 97% of communities within the U.S. allow the legal sale of alcohol, until a 2013 election, Owsley County was a "dry county" that prohibited the sale of alcohol. This included the City of Booneville, the county seat. County voters had repeatedly rejected the repeal of [[Volstead Act|alcohol prohibition laws enacted in 1920]]. This ended on March 6, 2013, when a majority of county voters voted to designate the county "wet". The vote was 632 "wet", 518 "dry". This permitted the sale of alcohol once the fiscal court had set ordinances to regulate the distribution of alcoholic beverages.<ref name="wmyt130305">{{cite news |publisher=[[WYMT-TV]] |location=[[Hazard, KY]] |title=Owsley County voters approve alcohol sales |url=http://www.wkyt.com/wymt/home/headlines/Voters-approve-alcohol-sales-195467301.html |date=March 5, 2013 |access-date=June 4, 2015 }} {{Dead link|date=April 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> Even though the sale of alcohol had long been forbidden, its consumption has been legal since 1933, when the [[Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution|Twenty-first Amendment]] was implemented.

As was typical, drunk driving during Owsley's time as a dry county was more of a problem than in wet counties, due to the necessity of driving the long distances necessary to buy legally-sold alcohol. A 2003 study in [[Kentucky]] suggested that residents of dry counties have to drive farther from their homes to consume alcohol, which resulted in increased impaired driving.<ref>Gary, S. L. S., ''et al.''Consideration of driver home county prohibition and alcohol-related vehicle crashes. ''[[Accident Analysis and Prevention]]'', 2003, ''35(5)'', 641–648.</ref>