Booze, Malls and Public Opinion 09/04/2009
A public hearing was held last night in which the main event featured a request for a zoning change at the newly redone Harewood Mall, now known as the University Village Mall. This rezoning application was required as the present zoning does not permit a liqour outlet. Both the licensee, who wishes to transfer his license from another mall location (Woodgrove) and the mall owner who believes that the outlet will attract business would like this grant from City Council. If it were any normal business such as a bank, restaurant or dollar store which were suggested by the public at the meeting no rezoning would be necessary. But as the present case involves what is essentially a controlled substance, rezoning it must be. I attended the meeting to see how the situation would be handled. As we are dealing with a controlled substance I had hoped to be presented by the City with some information which might let me make an intelligent decision. No such luck. There was no information concerning the number of liquor licenses in surrounding or comparably sized towns. There was no map of the location of current licenses to show either need or plethora. There was no map of liquor related problems from the police or from social services which might suggest where more outlets might -or might not- be acceptable. Instead there were pleas and passions. The mall representative plead that the liquor store would generate traffic and he needed a tenant. The fact that the rezoning application comes now rather than when the entire proposal to remodel the mall indicates that a liquor store is not a necessity but a circumstance. Some of the public plead that they were happy to have the convenience of a liquor store available when they went to the mall for groceries or to the drugstore despite there being a number of licensed outlets already within a relatively small radius. The vast majority opposed the rezoning application, feeling that Harewood was now, partly through the efforts of the mall developer and community action, leaving behind the old "Scarewood" title and becoming a desirable neighbourhood again and thus did not wish to tempt the fates to go back to the situation when there was a liquor store in the Mall, the old "Scarewood" days. There was also considerable discussion of the difficulties related to the existence of a 7/11 outlet which was open 24/7. One suspects that Council will take this under advisement. In the end, even without the kind of rational presentation which I believe the city should have made concerning the presence or absence of liquor in the city, I became convinced that it should be up to the residents of the area in which the controlled substance establishment is to be located to decide. We are not dealing with an ordinary commodity in such a case, but in a substance which, while legal under some conditions, still requires special permitting. Who should decide the location of such establishments: mall owners?; liquor dealers? the City?; or the residents who will be most impacted by its presence?? I vote for the residents. Leave a Reply |
