Last session, the East Lansing City Council did a great job protecting children from the dangers of alcohol. Unfortunately, no one told them that the children are already well protected in that respect.
By a 3-2 vote, the council decided to deny an application that would have allowed the East Lansing BP gas station, 504 Michigan Ave., to sell packaged beer, wine and spirits.
The vote was not unanimous. That’s understandable because it’s a difficult decision. But ultimately, the city council made a poor decision in deciding to reject the gas station owner’s application to sell alcohol.
If the gas station qualified under the standards set by the city, then it should have received the go-ahead. The gas station can’t help that it is located near a childcare center. A gas station isn’t a bar; alcohol is not the main product advertised and sold. So allowing a gas station to sell alcohol is not unduly exposing children to alcohol.
And if the council was worried about that area becoming seedier as a result of the gas station selling alcohol, the council should have made the gas station responsible for the cleanliness of the area as part of the approval process.
Figuring out a way to work with the station, instead of rejecting the application, should have been the plan. For example, in the case of What Up Dawg?, 317 M.A.C. Ave., the council approved a tavern license for the restaurant (meaning they can sell beer until midnight) despite the restaurant’s proximity to a church but required the installation of a security camera for safety reasons.
A similar compromise in this scenario would have been better for both the city and the business.
There are other, more pressing concerns than the station’s proximity to a childcare center, such as the cognitive dissonance involved in selling alcohol to people who will then drive, or the notion that a gas station that needs to sell alcohol to stay afloat isn’t a great gas station. And those concerns would have been quality reasons for the council to reject the application. But those issues weren’t brought up in the meeting, yet the application still was rejected.
The council made the wrong decision, for the wrong reasons.
In a community with multiple bars, convenience and grocery stores where alcohol is available, what’s one more place to purchase alcohol going to do to the community? It’s not as if approving the application would allow children to walk from the childcare center into the gas station, grab a beer, pay and walk out. There still would be a societal and legal separation between the childcare center and the alcohol sold by the gas station. It’s understandable and admirable that the council wants a gap between children and alcohol, but that gap already is in place.
Although this merely is one isolated case, the example set by being unwilling to work with a small business is not one the council should embrace. The city should be as accommodating as possible to businesses, especially in the state’s poor economic climate.
In the future, the council needs to be more willing to work with businesses.
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