Citation

Morrison CN. Addiction 2022; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/add.15979

PMID

35792055

Abstract

Allow me to begin with a brief anecdote. Richard Torres owned a pool hall in the 'West End' of Fresno, California, in 1961. A small business owner in a busy bar district, he applied to the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control for an on-sale liquor license, which would permit him to sell beer to his patrons for on-site consumption. An Alcoholic Beverage Control officer assessing the application considered the available facts. The West End contained 88 licensed premises, including 63 on-sale licenses; 26 of the licensed premises were within 500 feet of the pool hall. The area contained 3.8% of liquor licenses in the Fresno district but required up to one-third of available law enforcement services for night patrol. The officer noted the 'high concentration of licenses' and 'high incidence of arrests for drunkenness', but nonetheless recommended that Mr Torres receive the on-sale license.

The story does not end there. The California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control refused to adopt the officer's recommendation, and instead established a hearing to review the application. They sought to determine whether granting the license would affect public welfare because 'of an undue concentration of alcoholic beverage licenses in the vicinity'.

Torres v. Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control was an important precedent in California. The 2020 California Alcoholic Beverage Control Act [3] cites the case 12 times, including to support the authority of the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control to limit the number of licensed premises. Since 1961--the same year that Mr Torres unwittingly helped shape decades of alcohol control policies in California--on-sale licenses have been capped within California counties at one per 2000 population, notwithstanding exemptions and relocations across county lines. Similar limits apply in many other locations around the world. For example, the State Government of Victoria, Australia, advises that new licenses should be discouraged where there are two or more existing licensed premises within a 100-m radius, or 14 or more existing licensed premises within a 500-m radius...

Language: en

Keywords

Crime; violence; density; license; outlet; regulation