Limit small liquor stores, cut crime, some urge LR
Convenience stores with colorful advertising for beer and liquor cap both ends of the 12th Street corridor, at Woodrow Street and at University Avenue.
Along the corridor are four stores with carryout-liquor permits in the two-block span from Peyton Street to Adams Street. Three of the stores are in the same strip mall.
In the past three years, one of those stores has regularly been on the Little Rock Police Department’s Community Abatement Program list of businesses or residences with a large number of criminal-activity complaints.
The most recent list included six package-goods stores. Police are monitoring all of them.
Community activists and city leaders have said that allowing the package-goods stores to locate so closely together creates a bubble of crime that inhibits efforts to revitalize some of the neighborhoods they say are the most fragile and most in need of help.
The Little Rock Board of Directors made an attempt to control the development of package-goods stores in the city earlier this year by writing and eventually passing an ordinance to update the city’s conditional-use-permit zoning laws. A conditionaluse-permit requirement adds an extra layer of community approval in the form of a Planning Commission hearing and Board of Directors approval.
The zoning update, which passed in early April, addressed several kinds of businesses, but in terms of alcoholic beverage sales, it changed the city’s zoning requirements so that food stores smaller than 5,000 square feet that don’t sell gas have to seek a conditional-use permit to sell alcoholic beverages. The requirement was loosened after several weeks of debate and after representatives from the convenience-store industry, specific companies and the real estate industry complained that the stricter requirements would stifle economic development.
The city planned to revisit the zoning law at a later date, but some community activists are saying the city can’t afford to wait.
“There’s too many of them too close together to have healthy communities,” said the Rev. Benny Johnson, head of the city’s Stop the Violence campaign. “We are calling on City Hall to do something, to rethink their rezoning ordinance now, rather than waiting. Most of the stores that exist have caused big problems. The community needs help.”
Johnson, along with a handful of other advocates, held a news conference recently at a Woodrow Street convenience store that sits at the entrance to the 12th Street corridor and which has been put forth as a model of revitalization, winning several awards for an ongoing planning process that began in 2008.
“I don’t know how anyone can argue that a healthy community would have four stores in a one-block area that sell alcohol,” said Ward 2 City Director Ken Richardson, who helped develop the initial concept of the 12th Street revitalization plan. “It’s problematic because there have been studies that have found that when there are fewer stores that sell alcohol, then there is less alcohol being [consumed] and fewer alcohol-related crimes. I think when you have a disproportionate number of establishments that sell beer or alcohol, that helps contribute to some of the vices that are destroying the moral fiber of our community.”
As of Friday, according to Alcoholic Beverage Control staff, there were 552 alcohol sales permits in Little Rock. That includes stores that sell carryout liquor, restaurants that sell by the drink and all of the other types of permits the agency grants.
At first glance, the addresses for permits, when plotted on a map, are located in predictable patterns, with “by-the-drink” permits pervading the River Market District and surrounding streets as well as the new business developments west of the intersection of interstates 630 and 430.
Other types of permits are located together along main thoroughfares — Cantrell Road, Rodney Parham Road, University Avenue and Asher Avenue. Then permits are seen in smaller clumps inside neighborhoods along lessused thoroughfares, mostly in areas south of I-630.
“Some of these are our most fragile neighborhoods, and it’s cognitive dissonance to me to suggest that isn’t related to the number of these stores located in those neighborhoods,” Richardson said. “It doesn’t make sense, and it’s somewhat offensive to me.”
State officials, however, disagree with the characterization that the stores create a bubble of crime.
Michael Langley, director of Alcoholic Beverage Control, said the department and board review concerns submitted via letter or in person at hearings for every permit application, but they don’t receive many complaints about convenience stores.
“A valid opposition can be that they have a serious crime problem, and it’s related to alcohol and here’s the proof we have,” Langley said. “But it’s rare that somebody went into the store and purchased alcohol and the problem happened right there. Those are not the statistics they have or the ones they show us. I understand people’s concerns about alcohol, but in my opinion, I certainly believe that drugs lead much more to crime than alcohol.”
Langley said the board regularly hears either that a location poses no issue, or that directors or neighbors
As of Friday, according to Alcoholic Beverage Control staff, there were 552 alcohol sales permits in Little Rock. That includes stores that sell carryout liquor, restaurants that sell by the drink and all of the other types of permits the agency grants.
may have an issue with a particular permit application location through the reports that are submitted on almost every application by the Little Rock Police Department.
Representatives from the community rarely show up for meetings, which are held in the afternoon on weekdays, he said.
The board does consider the feeling of the neighborhood, Langley said, but ultimately it has a responsibility to ensure “public convenience and advantage” in terms of store placement.
“What’s the valid argument for one store owner not to be able to do what everybody else in his industry is doing or what three other stores are doing in an area?” Langley said. “It’s complicated, but I believe that eight stores don’t sell more in one area than if there was just one store. One store would sell just as much if it was located by itself. Invariably it creates competition in pricing with more outlets, but not more sales.”
Richardson disagreed with Langley, saying he believed more outlets provided more opportunities for those most at risk of dangerous behavior because they have been cut off at another store or they are under age.
“The U.S. Department of Justice did a report on alcohol and crime recently, and alcohol abuse was a factor in 40 percent of the violent crimes committed in the U.S.,” Richardson said. “If one would look at some of the incident reports from the police department, a lot of the crime and criminal activity in certain parts of our community happened at or emanated from those stores. If it didn’t cause problem behavior, we wouldn’t have the number of these convenience stores in our Community Abatement Program as troubled properties.”
Other cities that have tried to create zones where beer and alcohol may be sold have been told they are stepping on the state’s toes. Fayetteville passed an ordinance limiting beer and wine sales to liquor stores and was told in a nonbinding Arkansas attorney general’s opinion that they were superseding the Alcoholic Beverage Control authority, which is not allowed.
Crafting stricter laws in Little Rock would have to be done carefully to avoid stepping on those same toes. Several advocates of the most recent update approved in April argued that those changes were possible because they weren’t outright denying businesses the right to open or sell alcoholic beverages, only adding an additional public process to give residents a chance to voice their concerns.
“I haven’t researched these opinions, but my initial reaction is that zoning issues have been deferred to local governments, not to the state government,” said City Attorney Tom Carpenter. “Zoning deals with the overall quality of life in a community. If it’s applied evenly and fairly across the board, it seems to me a spacing requirement could be done in a conditional-use process. Also one of the things on the application for an alcohol sales permit asks whether the business complies with local zoning. That would also indicate to me that aspect is a local issue.”
Langley said a business can obtain a conditional alcohol sales permit if it doesn’t comply with zoning. Those permits become active once the business can prove they are in compliance or they expire in a year if they cannot comply.
Carpenter said he hadn’t been asked to draft another change to the zoning rules as of Friday.