Fading of Adventist influence in Takoma Park

[Mimi]

Fading of Adventist influence in Takoma Park seen in liquor-sales proposal
   
By Steve Hendrix - The Washington Post
Friday, September 17, 2010; 10:59 PM

Erwin Mack remembers a time when any effort to lift Takoma Park's ban on alcohol sales would have sparked a fight. When Mack arrived in 1977 to work at the world headquarters of the alcohol-shunning Seventh-day Adventist Church, Takoma Park was both a company town and a dry one.

The prohibition on carry-out booze had been on the books since the Adventists arrived a century ago and became the chief influence on the Maryland town's culture and identity. Any change "would have been absolutely a major concern to us," he said.

But when Mack alerted local Adventist officials that a move was afoot to allow beer and wine stores within city limits, the proposal provoked little more than a shrug. The response "basically was that most of us don't live here anymore anyway, that the community has a right to choose what to do," said Mack, 79, now executive director of the Takoma/Langley Crossroads Development Authority. "We're not weighing in at all. But it's sad. It's another loss of Adventist identity around here."

By the end of this month, the Takoma Park City Council is expected to decide on a proposal from local business leaders to scrap the ban on carry-out alcohol sales. The measure would have to be approved by the state legislature. Whatever the council decides, longtime Adventists say the lack of controversy over the idea shows how low their influence has declined in a town that church members around the world once looked to as a kind of Adventist Vatican City.

This is a two-page WP article worth reading. EGW is quoted on the 2nd page.