Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Time warp
Becky O'Malley comes down on the side of not taking everyone's fucking money, for a change. Recently, the city was going to add a few hundred dollars in fees to those people who dare sell alcohol in the city. O'Malley's complaint isn't really about taking money, but taking money from the wrong people. Still, I felt like I was in a time warp with:
First, let's be clear that Berkeley has its share of nuisances or even crimes caused by alcohol sales, just like other urban areas. What are called "corner" liquor stores—small stores in residential areas whose main business is selling alcoholic drinks in bottles—can turn into a hangout for disreputable alcoholics if they're not aggressively well-managed to avoid selling to the wrong people. On the other hand, small grocery stores within walking distance can be a real asset to neighborhoods if proprietors do a good job of screening their clientele. Who are these "disreputable alcoholics," and what tools is the store owner to use to avoid selling to them? How should the city assess fees to deal with them?
The reason I say time warp is because this isn't all that far from what you might have seen in an op-ed defending segregation in the 60s. Perhaps I've been listening to the Berkeley race warriors too long because I can't help but smell racism with things like this. ("Crack must have more severe sentences than cocaine, because the types of problems caused by crack-users are so much worse!")
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