LEESBURG — Over 73 percent of Leesburg residents who voted in Tuesday’s alcohol referendum agreed the time had come to end the drought Cherokee County has forced on the town since it was incorporated in 1958.

When residents voted (coincidentally) 158-58 to lift over a half-century of prohibition, Leesburg joined Cedar Bluff and Centre as wet towns in a still-dry Alabama county. Of the 67 counties in Alabama, 26 remain dry.

“Yay! Cherokee County is slowly entering the 21^st century,” local resident Catherine C. posted on Facebook after The Post announced the results of the election around 7:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Another Post friend who chimed in on Facebook wasn’t so excited with the outcome of the referendum.

“Sounds like a bunch of alcoholics to me,” wrote Butch V., whose remarks against alcohol sales prompted an outcry from several others.

“It was always available, only now it’s legal,” wrote Donna C.

“Legal sales of alcohol does not more drinkers make,” posted Amanda G.

Contacted by phone Wednesday afternoon, Mayor Edward Mackey agreed with the latter assessment.

“There won’t be one more drinker in Leesburg today than there was yesterday” as a result of the vote, Mackey said. “I thought it might be 2-to-1, so I was surprised that the vote was nearly 3-to-1 in favor.”

Mackey said he figures three or four businesses in town will initially offer alcohol for sale when the ordinance is written and local and state licenses are bought and distributed later this summer.

“No one’s going to get rich, but now we can share in the revenue that alcohol generates in Cherokee County,” Mackey said.

Cedar Bluff began selling alcohol in 2005. The town’s fight to sell alcohol began in 2003 and culminated in a legal fight and, ultimately, passage in 2010 of a state law that allows any municipality in Alabama with at least 1,000 residents to hold a wet-dry referendum.

When the 2010 U.S. Census numbers were released in February, Leesburg had grown from 799 residents (according to the 2000 Census) to 1,027. A petition began making the rounds in March and within weeks, the town council had the necessary number of signatures and was able to establish June 14 as the date for a vote on alcohol.

The city of Centre began selling beer, wine and liquor on March 4 after 54 percent of residents approved sales in a November 2010 vote.