It could get easier to find a cocktail
Bills seek more liquor licenses in S.F., extended bar hours
Marsha Maloof is not a big drinker. But sometimes when she and her husband invite friends to their home in the Bayview, they want to go somewhere nearby for a cocktail. Then reality hits.
“There’s really no place to do that in our neighborhood,” she said. “If we want to go and have something nice, we have to go over to San Bruno Avenue on the other side of the freeway.”
City officials and state Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, want to change that.
They are making another push to get a bill passed in Sacramento that would create 25 liquor licenses for restaurants located in seven outlying commercial corridors of the city: Third Street in the Bayview, Mission Street in the Excelsior, San Bruno Avenue, Ocean Avenue, Noriega Street, Taraval Street and parts of Visitacion Valley.
The bill is one of two legislative pushes in Sacramento that could enhance nightlife in the city, but which opponents say would oversaturate San Francisco with alcohol and undermine public safety. State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, is offering legislation to allow bars and restaurants to serve alcohol until 4 a.m., pending appropriate permits and approval from the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.
Ting’s bill closely mirrors legislation introduced last year by former state Sen. Mark Leno, DSan Francisco. That legislation met strong opposition from some nonprofit groups and state legislators who were skeptical that San Francisco needed more liquor licenses.
A scaled down version of the
legislation passed, permitting the creation of five new licenses instead of the desired 28. The ABC will accept applications for the five licenses in September.
“We hope we can make another run at it,” Ting said. “Oftentimes in the Legislature you have to try things a couple times and keep moving the ball forward.”
Ting said the goals are the same as before: to create “more vibrant commercial corridors” in neighborhoods that have traditionally seen little foot traffic and are not tourist destinations.
“People in the Sunset, where I live, don’t want to travel all the way downtown if they don’t have to,” he said.
The impetus for Ting’s bill comes from the way California issues liquor licenses. A 1939 state law ties the number of licenses for restaurants and bars to a county’s population — a ratio San Francisco already exceeded at the time. As a result, the state has not issued a new liquor license to a bar or restaurant since.
Instead, restaurants and bars sell the the licenses to one another at prices that can easily exceed $300,000. Restaurants in outer neighborhoods that see relatively little foot traffic can’t afford the price, said city officials and restauranteurs.
Under Ting’s legislation, the California Department of Alcohol Beverage Control would, via a lottery system, sell five new licenses, every year for five years, to restaurants in one of those outer corridors for $13,800 each.
Unlike those with licenses obtained on the open market, restaurants that win one of the new special licenses would be prohibited from reselling it. If the business closed, it would have to relinquish the license to ABC.
Currently, 812 restaurants in the city have full liquor licenses, meaning they can sell spirits in addition to beer and wine. Many of them are in and around North Beach and Fisherman’s Wharf, said Gwyneth Borden, executive director of the Golden Gate Restaurant Association. She said having a liquor license can provide a big boost to a restaurant’s profit margin.
Andrea Ferrucci, owner of Dark Horse Inn in the Excelsior, said she planned to apply for one of the licenses because she can’t afford to buy one on the open market. Her hope, she said, is to open a new, full-service restaurant in the Excelsior commercial corridor with craft cocktails, beer and wine.
“There really isn’t anything out here like that at all,” she said.
Benjamin Van Houten, business development manager at the city’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development, said he is hopeful Ting’s legislation will have a better chance of passage than Leno’s had.
Ting’s bill asks for five licenses per year for five years, instead of 28 all at once, as Leno sought. Van Houten said he hoped that addressed some legislators’ concerns that issuing so many new licenses would set a bad precedent.
“It’s responding to the committee’s concerns but still advancing toward the same important goals,” Van Houten said. “This is a type of license that is responsive to the specific needs of San Francisco.”
Michael Scippa, director of public affairs for Alcohol Justice, a San Rafael alcohol industry watchdog group, disagreed.
“It’s all smoke and mirrors,” he said. “There are plenty of places in those neighborhoods to get a drink if you want one.”
He said the bills by Ting and Wiener will undermine public safety.
“Over time, these exemptions just tear at the fabric of safety that is based upon density and population. An over-concentration of alcohol will lead to an overconsumption, which will lead to more harm,” he said.
Maloof, president of the Bayview Hill Neighborhood Association, said decisions should be made based on the neighborhood circumstances.
“We don’t want people out being intoxicated, but then again we want the vibrancy,” she said. “The neighborhood is looking at it from all the different sides.