— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
While San Francisco's State Senator Mark Leno is busy trying to extend California's last call until 4 a.m., city Supervisor David Campos is taking a much more puritanical stance on alcohol sales. [Campos misspoke, see update below]
“I'm for limiting the sale of small alcohol bottles,” the Mission District's supervisor, who hopes to join Leno in Sacramento in 2014, told a crowd of 35 during last Thursday's meeting of the Lower 24th Merchant's & Neighbors Association. He also stated that they “create a number of problems,” but did not elaborate further before changing the subject.
The statement came amidst a discussion about preserving 24th Street's vibrancy, with local merchants hoping that easing the Mission's liquor license moratorium on small, predominately Latino grocers will abate 24th's recent upscale restaurant boom by opening the markets to new sources of revenue. The current prohibitions on liquor licenses favor large, corporate businesses at the expense of small neighborhood markets, such as Casa Lucas on 24th and Alabama.
Currently, a market must be over 5,000 sq ft to apply for a license—smaller neighborhood markets are prohibited from obtaining one—and obey a strict set of limitations as to what they can and cannot sell.
Campos indicated that he supports allowing all markets, regardless of size, to obtain liquor licenses, but supports controlling what they can and cannot sell for an unspecified public good. We are left to speculate that banning tall boys is Campos's strategy for fighting alcoholism and vagrancy, which strikes us as a very ineffective and Bloombergian solution to a noticeably declining problem.
We reached out to Campos's staff for clarification on his position, but are yet to hear back. In the meantime, we're ever-so glad Dolores Park falls outside his jurisdiction.
Updated @ 5:40pm: Campos's aide Nate Albee got back to us and clarified his position. Campos had meant to say that he supports the ABC regulations as they stand now, which ban “airplane bottles” (usually sized between 1 or 2 ounces) of hard booze and individual beer bottles less than 24oz from being sold in grocery stores, and he merely wants to expand the pool of businesses that can apply for licenses to sell liquor. Needless to say, his remarks didn't come out clearly.
Campos hopes to file legislation in the coming weeks to allow small grocery stores to sell beer and wine.
Comments (15)
Oh fuck this guy. He clearly has nothing more than a faint, foggy clue about what he’s talking about, and he really is just a control freak who I’m sure was told by his consultants that being against a 24 oz budweiser Chelada rang true with some constituency in the polls.
I really hope he loses his bid for Assembly, because it would just make me laugh, literally out loud at him and his tears of pain on election night.
Right on cue.
There is something wrong with your algorithm if this doesn’t come up in “Previously on UA”: http://uptownalmanac.com/2010/05/listen-bitch-im-going-put-you-some-fuck…
I am hereby forming the Cutty Bang & What It Do Historic Preservation Society.
Fixed.
I wish David Campos would stop making sleazy-eyes at me whenever I pass by him at City Hall. Weiner too, he’s worse.
I don’t see supporting a 4 a.m. last call and supporting restrictions on tall boys / airplane booze bottles as being mutually exclusive. I’m all for the 4 a.m. last call. I also wouldn’t mind if the liquor store across the street from me wasn’t selling tall boys to the neighborhood drunks on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Maybe then they wouldn’t be drunk enough at 9 a.m. to wake me up when I’m trying to sleep off my own hangover.
Well since all 7,651 other bans in this city have worked out so perfectly, why not through another one into the mix? Who cares if it’s trying to solve a problem that actually exists? Why bother doing follow up studies to see if the goals are being met? Or why even bother establishing goals in the first place?
Seriously though, they’ll just make the cans twice as thick and somehow the ban will no longer apply.
Work on the crime problem first you asshole.
i think it’s a crime that you have internet access.
If you want to have a drink and a talk sometime let me know..
Expect the clarification is no popov type vodka sold to drunks in pint bottles, rather than single beers, Not saying I would agree with that limitation, but I don’t expect that he is such an idiot that would come out against single beers.
This guy is seriously the worst.
San Francisco and 40’s forever !!
No not really, but ISan Francisco does have a special relationship with 40’s, and legally codifying that relationship that all single beers need to be greater than 39.5 oz is a start !!
Good god Kevin. Do you really think that just because Campos is listening to the concerns of his constituents and says that he might support some of the limitations they’ve suggested that he’s going to ban sales of beer?? That’s ridiculous. You’ve completely made up this story based on absolutely nothing. Were you even at the meeting?
Yes, I was at the meeting. Were you? The audio speaks for itself, and if you read the article (or headline), you’d see that he doesn’t want to “ban sales of beer,” but he’s in favor of restricting the sale of certain sized containers of alcohol. As mentioned, he seems in favor of actually allowing grocers to sell alcohol, so, in a sense, he wants to expand the sale.