The mixed beverage referendum that passed in Windsor can be good for everyone.

The allowance of mixed beverages will offer town officials to seek economic development that could include hotels, chain restaurants and other advantages that could be beneficial for all citizens of Bertie County.

While it’s true that some people object to the referendum on moral grounds, it is also true that those people can still eat at restaurants that served mixed beverages without consuming alcohol.

Those who object have every right to enjoy the benefits that could come to the town without supporting the sale or consumption of mixed beverages.

Those sales, however, make economic development in the form of restaurants or hotels much more likely than they would have been otherwise.

With other surrounding communities already offering the sale of mixed beverages, it would have been nearly impossible for the town of Windsor to attract any kind of sit-down restaurant in the vein of Ruby Tuesday, Applebee’s or another such establishment without the referendum’s passage.

According to one survey, Bertie County businesses were losing more than $2 million annually because of money being spent in surrounding communities simply because of the lack of offering mixed beverages.

Whatever the position someone took before the vote, now that it has been passed, the opportunities can benefit everyone.