JOHN E. SETTLE Jr.
Editor
Focus SB News
At its next meeting on Oct. 28, the Shreveport City Council will consider a resolution encouraging the Shreveport-Caddo Metropolitan Planning Commission (MPC) to “place a moratorium on the issuance of any occupational licenses and certificates of occupancy for liquor stores/retail sales of alcohol-liquor, other than renewals, for a period of six (6) months.”
This resolution should be defeated for many reasons:
1. The city of Shreveport, NOT the MPC, issues occupational licenses and certificates of occupancy.
2. As written, beer and wine sales would be encompassed by the moratorium, which would include new grocery stores.
3. The city council makes the final decisions on zoning cases involving the sale of liquor but NOT occupational licenses or certificates of occupancy.
4. The overbroad generalization by the sponsors of the resolution that applications for beer, wine and liquor sales are only made in disadvantaged neighborhoods is NOT factual and does NOT support a citywide moratorium.
5. If the city’s beer, wine and liquor ordinances need to be revised, the council and/or the MPC can commence that effort ASAP without a moratorium.
6. A timeline for revision of the beer, wine and liquor ordinances will be much longer than six months with consideration of the committee and council meeting process. If this effort is commenced by the MPC, then the timeline will be lengthened because any MPC ordinance revisions must first be approved by the MPC Board before being sent to the council.
Crime in and around liquor stores in certain neighborhoods Is a problem, but not one worthy of a total shut-down on economic growth throughout the entire city. The council needs to ignore the overwrought emotional rhetoric, make a reasoned legislative decision to reject the proposed moratorium and get on with a total review of the city’s beer, wine and liquor ordinances, which could have started weeks, if not months, ago.