Quote of note:

I have to ask why liquor stores, and not Starbucks, are booming in our neighborhoods. People come to these neighborhoods from miles around certainly not for the lattes. Store owners say they're just serving a demand -- that the real poisoners are drug dealers hanging around these stores just as much as the winos. But the notion of "discount liquor" sounds like drugs at a deal. So maybe the planning department shouldn't be putting so many of these drug dealers all in one place. The department needs, instead, to approve more real grocery stores and other businesses that build the community, not profit from -- and contribute to -- its decline.

Anyi Howell is a reporter for Youth Radio, an award-winning journalism training program in the Bay Area.

Why so many liquor stores?
- Anyi Howell
Wednesday, December 21, 2005

When I was little and my dad drove around with me near our house in West Oakland, he used to point out how many liquor stores and churches were right across the street from each another. Riding with him through a city like Oakland, we could almost make a game of it. But I didn't know if he would find the game funny, so I never brought it up.

I've noticed the same thing in low-income neighborhoods from San Francisco to Seattle to Washington. I asked my uncle how there could be as many liquor stores as churches. He replied, "Because they want us to live life on our knees."

I always wondered who "they" are. Is it the imperial business owners who sometimes establish ghetto chains of "likka stoez" all in one neighborhood? Or is it the planning department that green-lights the development of the stores?

The issue has been in the news because several black men vandalized an Oakland liquor store and allegedly threatened the store owner for "poisoning the black community." The media spared no opportunity to show the footage, and prosecutors are painting the culprits as terrorists.

But I look at the situation through a different lens. Some of these stores add to community problems such as public drunkenness and domestic violence with liquor discounts and lax rules that make it easy to get drunk and get alcohol without being ID'd. And if you do get ID'd, fret not -- just walk down the block.

Before I turned 21, I could get a tall can of malt liquor for less than a dollar. Or I could pick up a Paul Masson brandy for $4 and a 50-cent soda to mix it with. I didn't run out and terrorize the streets of Oakland (although I did act rather foolish). But I know people who do and have run amok, and "likka stoe" specials have been the recipe for that hyper rowdy activity.

These stores' bottom line is people's consumption of candy, sodas, single cigars, cigarettes, stale donuts and withering fruits. They promote our unhealthy lifestyles with advertisements and deals. In my neighborhood, if I want to go to a grocery store with a real produce department, I pass at least five liquor stores on my way. If an area heavily saturated with fast-food restaurants is vulnerable to health problems stemming from obesity, it's no wonder areas with a lot of liquor stores experience higher violent crime rates -- a link established by a recent study from the Prevention Research Center.

So I have to ask why liquor stores, and not Starbucks, are booming in our neighborhoods. People come to these neighborhoods from miles around certainly not for the lattes. Store owners say they're just serving a demand -- that the real poisoners are drug dealers hanging around these stores just as much as the winos. But the notion of "discount liquor" sounds like drugs at a deal. So maybe the planning department shouldn't be putting so many of these drug dealers all in one place. The department needs, instead, to approve more real grocery stores and other businesses that build the community, not profit from -- and contribute to -- its decline.