While much of the United States of America put Prohibition to rest 73 years ago, large parts of the South have remained strictly off-limits to alcohol sales.But local and national business interests that stand to profit from the sale of alcohol, including real estate developers, grocery chains, restaurant groups and Wal-Mart, are combining their political and financial muscle to try to persuade hundreds of dry towns and counties to go wet. In the process, they are changing the face of the once staunchly prohibitionist Bible Belt.
    Attempts by Wal-Mart and others to allow alcohol sales in other places that remain dry—415 counties in the South and in Kansas still prohibit such sales—are meeting fierce resistance from some church groups and religious leaders. They argue that returning to the days when liquor flowed will mean more family violence, underage drinking, drunken driving and a general moral decay in the community.
    Wal-Mart, based in a dry county in Arkansas, forbids drinking at events held at corporate headquarters. But the giant retailer has made a push in the last year to sell more liquor, along with beer and wine, in its stores.