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| 18 September 2000 -The San Diego Union-Tribune 99-cent trouble Deny permits for liquor at discount stores Who would buy a 99-cent bottle of wine? People who don't have much money but want or a drink, like street drunks, desperate alcoholics and addicts and kids who want to get high. Studies show that the cheaper the price of alcohol, the more it's abused. And that's particularly true for teen-agers. So the idea of selling beer and wine at a 99-cent store, which have sprouted in moderate- and low-income areas throughout the county, sounds like a really bad idea. Yet that's exactly what the 99 Cents Only Store in Nestor wants to do. The problem is bigger than one store. If this store is allowed to sell 99-cent bottles of wine and beer, other such stores will try to do the same. That would be a bad trend for San Diego County. In Oceanside, an application by another 99 Cents Only Store to sell alcohol was denied when the police department there opposed it But the store in Nestor on Palm Avenue near Saturn Boulevard still has a pending application, and the San Diego Police Department has yet to officially oppose it. People living nearby, however, are complaining loudly. More than 60 protests have been filed with the state Department of Alcohol' Beverage Control (ABC), the agency that grants liquor licenses. Like in Oceanside, the Nestor neighborhood, already has a concentration of bars and liquor stores, twice as many as it should have, according to ABC standards. More than 2,000 people live in a mobile-home park right behind the store, and there are apartment complexes nearby, all with a lot of kids living in them. Managers of the mobile-home park are protesting the application, saying there's too much crime, vandalism and public drunkenness in the neighborhood already. The link between crime and easy access to liquor is well-established; scientific research on the impact of substance abuse is voluminous. When alcohol is more readily available, more drinking occurs. That's not just common sense, its also proven in a study published in 1996 in Alcohol Health and Research World. A 1995 study of Los Angeles County found that criminal violence was more prevalent in areas with higher concentrations of bars and liquor stores. Other studies by the National Bureau of Economic Research show that increases in alcohol prices lead to decreases in robbery, assault, sexual assault, spousal abuse and child abuse. An increase in liquor outlets is associated with the economic decline of neighborhoods, another study shows. Cheap prices and increased availability mean more abuse of alcohol. More abuse of alcohol means more crime and other problems. Does 99-cent wine and beer make any sense to anyone? Police, city council members and county health officials should join residents in opposing beer and wine sales at 99-cent stores. And the ABC should deny liquor licenses to them. Article Snapshot (22K) |
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