Proponents of a measure on Tuesday's municipal election ballot to make it legal to sell alcohol on Sundays say it could help the local economy and make Clovis more attractive to businesses, the Clovis News Journal reported.

But opponents claim that allowing liquor to be sold at restaurants and bars on Sunday could lead to more DWIs and alcohol-related crime and send the wrong message to young people, the News Journal said.

Citizens for Clovis Progress was the group that got the Sunday sales proposal on the ballot by collecting more than 1,000 valid petition signatures, well above the 750 signatures needed, the paper reported.

"Alcohol sales on Sunday are a great opportunity to generate increased revenue," Robin Howe, the group's spokesman, told the News Journal.

But Frank Dalton, a 49-year-old truck driver, told the paper he'd be voting against the measure and doesn't buy the argument that people leave Clovis on Sundays because they want to drink alcohol with their meals.

"I think using alcohol to keep people in Clovis is the flimsiest excuse," Dalton told the News Journal. If they say they're going to go out (to other cities), they're out to do something else. I wouldn't drive a hundred miles just to have a drink."

Meanwhile, backers of the proposal point to Hobbs, which approved a similar measure in 2003, the News Journal said.

Sunday sales have made Hobbs more attractive to new businesses, Hobbs Chamber of Commerce president Ray Battaglini told the paper.

And Hobbs Police Department spokesman, Capt. Donnie Graham, told the News Journal that Hobbs hadn't experienced a surge in DWI arrests on Sundays since passing the measure, but he did say Sunday DWI arrests went up 5 percent in 2006. 

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