Mr. Floyd,
Please consider this your first negative response.
I am a 65-year-old Christian who rarely drinks. I think your stance on the distillery in Chattanooga is just plain wrong and your reasoning is simply not logical.
Like it or not, alcohol is legal in Hamilton County. I agree that there is much carnage caused by alcohol, but having Chattanooga Whiskey distilled in Chattanooga will not change the carnage one bit and thinking otherwise is simply illogical. After all, it is already being distilled, just not here.
If you are going to fight something with every fiber of your being maybe you could spare a fiber to fight to keep motorcyclists and other drivers from being killed and maimed because of texting and driving.
It is a proven fact that texting and driving is more dangerous than driving while intoxicated. I know that this won't garner as many votes from your Christian voter base, but it is a more serious problem and effects more people than drinking and driving. There are many more texters than drinking drivers.
I ride a motorcycle every day and have been riding for 42 years. There is not a day goes by that some idiot doesn't pull out in front of me or slams on their brakes behind me while I am stopped at a traffic light. I see them texting at lights and driving 80 mph down the interstate. Something needs to be done to stop this practice. Maybe a first time fine of $1,000 would get there attention or maybe a loss of license for six months.
Like I said before, there are more people texting and driving than there are people drinking and driving. If you want to protect your constituents please send a fiber our way.
Ronnie "Rock" Land
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Okay, Rock, maybe a little "for example" will show you just one reason Rep. Floyd is against having a distillery located in Chattanooga:
Imagine if one of your relatives or close friends is killed in a vehicle accident caused by a drunk driver, and lying there in the floor board of his vehicle next to his intoxicated body is an empty bottle of "Chattanooga Whiskey."
Jim Ashley
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Richard Floyd's stance against whiskey being made in Chattanooga is little more than opportunism. He wants to stand up and shake his fist at the whiskey makers who threaten this beloved city as if he has a cause. I never heard him rattle any sabers about beer.
This is the same guy who used the NRA when he ran for office, yet he was one of the few people supporting the closing of the only public shotgun range for clay target shooters in Hamilton County. There are a lot of people who have not forgotten that.
I don't trust anything that he says, and I know that I'm not alone.
Trevor Fuller
Soddy Daisy
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Chattanooga Whiskey is already available for purchase in Hamilton County, Mr. Ashley.
Allowing it to be brewed here will not change that and may actually benefit the community by adding jobs.
Biff Loman
Chattanooga
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I doubt the drunks that Rep. Floyd fears will spend there money on locally made whiskey. They will most likely steer themselves into a larger (1.75L) handle of whiskey that is imported from another nearby county. If anything, a local artisan whiskey will more likely be consumed by connoisseurs, seeking out a completely different experience than what he frames.
Besides, distilling liquor is entirely different from consuming.
Tim Giordano
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Let's net this out. Rep Floyd is actively denying 60 or 70 local registered voters a job just because he doesn't like that alcohol is legal here and he does not want it made here. Who is going to run against and beat this guy next election?
Ike Conn