Two Metro Council members are developing a resolution to bring before the council in January that would abolish the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board. Councilwomen Tara Wicker and Donna Collins-Lewis say they don’t want to get rid of the city-parish’s local control of alcohol permitting, but that the board isn’t operating according to its ordinances and needs to be replaced with new procedures.
Wicker says she’s having discussions with attorneys, staff and interested parties to find a way to give ABC staff more power and establish oversight with Metro Council itself. Wicker and Collins-Lewis have long battled to instill regulations limiting the ability to sell liquor in low-income, urban areas of the city-parish, which isn’t a priority for the board, they say.
“There’s a clear correlation between the density of alcohol licenses issued and crime and poverty,” Wicker says.
In order for a license to be approved, the board must consider a number of enumerated conditions, including crime statistics for the area, the number of liquor licenses already in the area and the proposed business plan of the potential licensee.
“What we have seen is that from time to time those things have been considered, but more often than not they are not,” Wicker tells Daily Report.
At last week’s Metro Council meeting Wicker and Collins-Lewis deferred nine votes to reappoint ABC board members, saying they weren’t doing their jobs.
One of those board members up for reappointment, Bryan Jeansonne, says the board is doing its due diligence and that oversaturation isn’t well-defined for the board.
“A lot of us on the board let the market decide what oversaturation is,” Jeansonne says.
He adds that many prosperous parts of town, like downtown and the Bocage area, also have dense numbers of liquor licenses.
Chris Crawford, director of Alcoholic Beverage Control staff, says the board functions as a court, where staff does legwork to produce case materials. Though the board has metrics to allocate fines and penalties, they can also exercise case-by-case discretion.
The staff and the board have different tasks, but, Crawford says, “Ultimately, it’s up to the council, if they decide that they want to go in a different direction then we’ll go in that direction.”
Wicker says her constituents can’t trust the ABC board.
“They’ve put the responsibility back on the community. We have to watch and monitor what’s happening. That’s not something that should happen,” Wicker says. —Kelly Connelly
