City Council Preview for August 4 - Part 1

Boy. There’s another jam packed meeting being scheduled for this coming Tuesday night. Twice in the past few months we’ve gone until midnight, and several times past 11 pm. On the other hand, some nights the meetings end way before 10 pm. Something is clearly wrong in the way we are scheduling our meetings.

Among the items to draw some discussion this week are –

• · Guidelines for reviewing the sale of off-site alcohol
• · Interviews for the Traffic Advisory Group
• · $808,293 contract for crossing guard services
• · $1,474,855 contract for after school programs.

GUIDELINES

We’ve been waiting for more than 2 years for these guidelines to appear. Finally they are here, at least in draft form. In the time being we had to sit through 6 different applications without any guidelines. This wasn’t fair to the applicants or to the people sitting in judgment of the applications. It’s why I have been pressing the staff to perform and get these guidelines to us, and finally they did! Now let’s get to work and make some guidelines that protect the applicant as well as the community.

Background

Bear in mind that Lake Forest already has greater alcohol availability than most of our neighbors, on a per capita basis. Also recall that the availability of alcohol is directly associated with higher crime, especially violent crimes, higher DUIs, and higher health problems. (Click Here). So this isn’t a casual exercise.

Right now, Lake Forest has 22 businesses with licenses to sell beer and wine only and 21 to sell beer wine, and distilled spirits. Our maximum allowable number is 31 for each type. Most of the off-site sales are at gas stations with convenience stores (29%), supermarkets and grocery stores (29%), pharmacy and drug stores (23%), and beer, wine, and liquor stores (15%). Some parts of the City are over-saturated with more than 3 times the suggested limit, while a few areas have less than their full quota.

General

The City is recommending the following

• · Collating all the mish mosh of regulations into a single process that applies to any business seeking off-site sales of alcohol, requiring them to go to the Planning Commission for a use permit, and if the tract is over-saturated, requiring the PCN process.
• · A Police report about (a) crime in the city in general, (b) alcohol related crimes (AVL) in the tract, not including DUIs, and (c) calls for service for AVL in the tract and surrounding tracts.
• · A report from Development Services identifying (a) “any sensitive uses within 600 feet” and (b) all off-site licenses “in the vicinity”. Also an estimate whether or not the new location will contribute to “loitering, noise, traffic or other conditions…that may be detrimental or incompatible with other businesses in the adjacent area or permitted uses in the vicinity.”
• · A review by the state agency regulating alcohol sale.

Undue Concentration

The City seeks to define “undue concentration” as either

• · 20% greater crimes in the “crime reporting district” compared to “all crime reporting districts within the local …agency”
• · Ratio exceeds State guidelines

If a business seeks to operate in an area of undue concentration, the City proposes that the following conditions be examined –

• · “The sale of alcohol at an additional location within the census tract will allow the consumer to purchase alcohol in conjunction with other specialty goods or services desired by the consumer at the business location.
• · The business will offer a unique product in terms of price, quality, or variety or hours which are not readily available in the local area.
• · The business has the ability to serve an unserved or under-served population.
• · If proposed in conjunction with another primary use, the sale of alcohol will be ancillary to the primary business operations.”

In order to receive approval, the business must meet at least one of these conditions.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Does this go far enough? Too far? What are your thoughts?

Tomorrow we’ll discuss the rest of the agenda. On Monday we’ll return to our series on “fiscal conservatism”.

COMMENTS

It came to my attention that at times the COMMENTS section of the Patch doesn’t work. I have no control over this. I can neither enable or disable the Comments section nor can I delete or edit other people’s work. If you encounter this problem, please notify the Patch. If you want to discuss the issues raised in these articles you’re welcome to join more than 300 of us at Lake Forest Town Square, or you can e-mail me individually, come to my office hours, or attend my Town hall meetings.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Jim Gardner is on the City Council for Lake Forest. You can check him out on LinkedIn and/or Facebook and you can share your thoughts about the City at Lake Forest Town Square on Facebook. His comments are not meant to reflect official City Policy.

Dr. Gardner has office hours every Tuesday from 3 pm to 5 pm at the City Hall. In addition, he holds a mini town meeting every month. The next meeting will be on August 15 at 2 pm at the El Toro Public Library.

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