CHARLESTON — The American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia is working to get to the bottom of whether the town of Richwood circulated a list to businesses telling them not to serve alcohol to certain residents.
ACLU-WV sent a Freedom of Information Act request letter to the town after it had heard of the issue. The letter was sent by Legal Director Loree Stark.
Billy Wolfe, the director of communications at ACLU-WV said the organization is still communicating with Richwood officials, who are working to fulfill our records request, but no other update on the issue was available at this time.
ACLU-WV said if it was true that the town circulated the letter, it would be considered a violation of the equal protection, due process and privacy rights of the people named on the list because prohibition ended with the ratification of the 21st amendment.
An ACLU-WV press release also noted that business establishments were suffering for being forced to turn away customers that can still go one town down the road and make the same purchases.
In its letter, which was sent to Richwood Chief of Police Charles Burkhamer, Mayor Chris Drennen and the Richwood City Council, ACLU-WV requested all correspondence, data, directives, documents, videotapes, audiotapes, e-mail, text messages, faxes, files, guidance, guidelines, evaluations, instructions, messages sent on social media platforms, analyses, memoranda, agreements, notes, orders, policies, procedures, protocols, reports, rules, technical manuals or studies relating to the matter created in the past year.
The letter asks that if Burkhamer, Drennen or the council are not the custodians of the documents, that the request be forwarded to the custodians and that ACLU-WV be advised of who the custodians of those documents are.
"Documents regarding policies of public agencies after the politics have been formulated are not subject to the 'internal memoranda or letters' exemption of the WV-FOIA provisions," the letter states.