Request By:
Hon. Thomas P. Luckett
Union County Judge
Union County Courthouse
Morganfield, Kentucky 42437
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: James S. Goldberg, Assistant Attorney General
This letter is in response to your correspondence of December 10, 1976 in which you raise the following question, concerning the effect of reapportioning a part of a wet magisterial district into a dry magisterial district, or vice versa:
Would the portion moved assume the wet or dry status of the magisterial district into which it was moved?
In answering the question you set forth in your letter, I would refer you to the case of Rich-Hills Catering Company v. Slattery, Ky., 448 S.W.2d 379 (1969). In that case:
"The question presented for decision was whether legally 'dry' county territory that was annexed to a legally 'wet' city becomes 'wet' territory following the annexation. The trial court was of the opinion that the annexed territory remained 'dry' ."
The Court of Appeals of Kentucky affirmed because it "believed that the annexed territory remained 'dry' and subject to the local option status that existed in the territory prior to annexation. "
It is this Office's position that, based upon an interpretation of the above mentioned case, any part of a wet magisterial district, that is subsequently reapportioned into another magisterial district, will remain "wet" and any part of a dry magisterial district, that is subsequently reapportioned into another magisterial district, will remain "dry. "
I hope that this opinion will satisfactorily answer all your questions. If I can be of any further assistance, please do not hesitate to call upon me.