If a newly submitted petition is approved, Roaring Spring residents could get a chance in May’s primary election to allow alcohol sales at borough veterans clubs.

The petition, submitted recently to the Blair County Board of Elections, includes about 350 signatures from residents seeking a ballot question on the issue this May. If approved by a majority of voters, the question would allow local chapters of national veterans organizations to seek state liquor licenses.

That would most clearly apply to the borough’s American Legion Post — formally named Murray Appleman Post 147 — which state investigators busted as an alleged “speakeasy” in 2015. One of those circulating the petitions, Stephen Metzger, serves as an official at the post.

Metzger didn’t return a message seeking comment. Attempts to reach others circulating the petitions were unsuccessful.

“I think (Legion officers) approached us when they got a citation,” Roaring Spring Mayor Ronald Glunt said. Glunt said the borough’s solicitor advised club members to gather a petition for a ballot question.

The question reads: “Do you favor the granting of club liquor licenses to incorporated units of national veterans’ organizations in the borough of Roaring Spring, Blair County?”

County Elections Director Sarah Seymour said those seeking the question needed 267 signatures, a number based on the most recent election turnout. The petitions haven’t been verified but will be up for county Board of Elections approval in the coming weeks, she said.

Like most of Morrisons Cove, Roaring Spring doesn’t have any bars or stores that sell alcohol.

In February 2015, officers from the state Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement raided the post and seized cash and property after an undercover investigation revealed illegal alcohol sales at the post along Poplar Street. Investigators seized 55 gallons of beer and 25 liters of liquor.

At the time, Metzger said: “The Legion is not a criminal enterprise.”

The club carries out charity work in the borough, including efforts to reopen a closed community gym months after the state liquor bust.

Should the ballot measure pass the Board of Elections and succeed on May 19, it wouldn’t immediately establish legal liquor sales at the Legion post. The group would still have to obtain a state liquor license.

Mirror Staff Writer Ryan Brown is at 946-7457.