A strange tale: Yorba Linda's first liquor license

Nothing more clearly illustrates the differences between Yorba Linda’s cultural past and present than the story behind the community’s first--and for several years the only--state-issued license to sell alcoholic beverages.

Last week’s column noted the legend that had grown up around the liquor license, with the permit held for years by the local Friends Church--a tale once widely circulated but, according to interviews with two pioneer residents, not a true account.

The interviews were conducted for the Oral History Program at Cal State University, Fullerton. Hoyt Corbit was interviewed by Tom Peters in 1968 and George Kellogg by Terri Burton in 1971 and John Tugwell in 1972.

Corbit, who arrived in Yorba Linda with his parents in 1910, and Kellogg, who bought a ranch in 1914, shed some welcome light on the history of Yorba Linda liquor sales in the interviews, as related in my July 21 column.

Interestingly, Richard Gauldin’s oral history from 1970 repeated the tale of the church’s takeover of the license. Interviewer Milan Pavlovich asked, “Didn’t the church buy the license?” and Gauldin, resident since 1912, replied, “Yes, but that was a long time after [my days as a youth].”

Actually, according to Kellogg, a small group of concerned residents--including Kellogg, Hurless Barton and church representatives--attended a Santa Ana hearing on a transfer of the first license, which had been issued after Prohibition ended in 1933.

Kellogg said he told the others: “The [owner] has invested his money here and it does seem rather wrong to say that he couldn’t dispose of it. ...I wonder if we couldn’t buy him out.”

The license didn’t transfer and eventually the owner said he’d sell the permit for $150, an amount Kellogg said could be raised “easy enough.” Kellogg recalled that he and Barton put up $25 each “and I presume both of the preachers put up fifty,” and a deal was struck.

Then, the issue of who would hold the license arose. Kellogg recalled: “I said to Hurless, ‘Do you want to take this license?’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t want it.’ So I turned to each of the preachers and I said, ‘Would you want to uphold this license?’ They said, ‘No.’”

Kellogg stated he replied, “If you folks don’t do it, I was the one that started this, so I’ll take the license.” Kellogg said a state official later informed him that “if you bought that liquor license with the purpose of closing it, there’s nothing in the law that allows that.”

So, Kellogg said, he turned the license over to the official to hold. The official got into some legal trouble and “spent the rest of his life in Mexico,” according to Kellogg. “I don’t know whatever became of my liquor license. I don’t know whether he took it with him or not. But at any rate, that’s the way we ended the liquor situation in Yorba Linda.”

Corbit’s story was similar, but he stated the money was raised “by popular subscription.” They “went up and down the street” to ask for donations, Corbit noted, adding, “I guess practically everybody in town, including myself, gave maybe $1 or $5 or whatever they felt they could spare.”

Today, 74 licenses are active in the city’s 20 square miles. The state’s Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control says six are non-retail (manufacturers and wholesalers), 22 off-sale retail (grocery and liquor stores) and 46 on-sale retail (restaurants and bars).

Facts behind Yorba Linda liquor license legend

Yorba Linda’s longest-standing legend involves the history of the first—and for several decades the only—license allowing the sale of alcoholic beverages in the community, a tale that’s been passed down through three generations in this formerly “dry” hinterland.

As often told by oldtimers to new residents, the state-issued liquor license was bought or held or both bought and held, depending on the telling, by the local Friends Church.

However, the actual events are as intriguing as the legend that developed over the years, and how a community handled the issue before the advent of a city governing body is remarkable and would no doubt be a topic for fierce litigation today.

Participants in the liquor license story in the years immediately after Prohibition ended in the 1930s died years ago, but before their deaths, two well-respected early residents gave interviews in which they touched on the history of liquor and liquor sales in Yorba Linda.

The interviews were conducted for the Oral History Program at Cal State University, Fullerton. Hoyt Corbit was interviewed by Tom Peters in 1968 and George Kellogg by Terri Burton in 1971 and by John Tugwell in 1972.

Yorba Linda’s peculiar history regarding liquor sales began in 1909, according to Corbit, when the Janss Development Company began selling the community’s first tracts of land.

“In the original deeds to the Yorba Linda property, there was a clause that said if anyone established a place to sell alcoholic beverages--a liquor store, in other words, or a saloon--the title of the property would revert to the Janss Company,” Corbit told Peters.

“That was written into most of the original deeds in Yorba Linda,” Corbit said, adding, “There was no sale of liquor in any form in the Yorba Linda tract for about forty years.”

Kellogg’s slightly different version of the liquor license affair picks up after Prohibition, “when Yorba Linda was a very dry community,” he told Burton.

“Now, we wake up in 1932 to find out that after the Roosevelt election Yorba Linda was to have a liquor store. We were somewhat shocked. We hadn’t been consulted…but it was instituted, although it was not a serve store....They didn’t drink on the premises….

“However, even that wasn’t too good for us in Yorba Linda, so we organized between Mr. Hurless Barton, who was a deacon in his church, and the ministers and myself, and we went down to Santa Ana and asked to dispense with the liquor store in Yorba Linda.

“The owner of the liquor store had expressed a desire to comply, but we couldn’t get any satisfaction out of our hearing with the state at that particular time,” Kellogg said.

In the Tugwell interview, Kellogg noted the store “was down next to the old packing house,” and the Santa Ana hearing was to transfer ownership “to a young man in the community [who] we did not want to obtain such a liquor license because he would be more detrimental to us than the kind of place the old man had run.”

So Kellogg suggested to the others at the hearing, “The old man has invested his money here and it does seem rather wrong to say that he couldn’t dispose of it. He’d be out that money. I wonder if we couldn’t buy him out.”

Next week: What happened to the first liquor license and how it was hidden for decades. Also, the number of establishments the state licenses to sell liquor in Yorba Linda today.

Water use expected to rise as restrictions end

Residents obeying a successful water conservation law that impressively surpassed a 10 percent reduction goal and a second year of heavier-than-expected rainfall have resulted in a sizeable revenue drop for the Yorba Linda Water District.

But, because “a third consecutive year of significant precipitation is unlikely,” water sales to the district’s 75,000 residents are expected to rebound for the fiscal year that began July 1, according to General Manager Ken Vecchiarelli.

Conservation-minded Yorba Lindans used 20 percent less water before restrictions were lifted recently. The decrease, coupled with two seasons of heavy rain, meant the district “sold less water than anticipated,” Vecchiarelli noted in a report to district directors.

Water sales declined $2.9 million last year but are expected to increase $1.2 million for the current year, Vecchiarelli stated. Anticipated water use will reach 22,350 acre-feet, which is higher than the 20,162 used last year but lower than the 2009 figure of 23,417.

One acre-foot is the volume of water that would cover an acre of land one foot deep, or 43,560 cubic feet or 325,851 gallons. The district bills in 748-gallon units, and average residential customers use 25 units or 18,700 gallons monthly.

The 2011-12 budget estimates $30.7 million income, up from $26.2 million last year, and $27.7 million expenses, up from $22.8 million. Including “depreciation” forecasts a $2 million loss, up from last year’s $1 million loss. Capital improvement projects will add $11.8 million to spending.

Other interesting and surprising items gleaned from the 200-page budget report:

--Most of the district’s income will come from water sales, $27.4 million, with $1.7 million from the $5.50 monthly sewer charge. Property taxes will add another $1.2 million to district coffers.

The district records 23,850 water hookups for residential, commercial and light industrial accounts and expects to add 400 more this year. A total 6,383 sewer accounts were added due to the takeover of the city’s eastside sewers.

--Water users face a 7.5 percent rate increase for imported water from the Metropolitan Water District Jan. 1, 2012. But the YLWD seeks to annex about six more square miles of land to the Orange County Water District groundwater basin.

If successful, the annexation “will allow the district to pump the maximum groundwater available each year, at a lower cost than purchasing the same amount of import…water,” for $1.5 million in annual savings.

--No raises are built-in for 76 full-time employees, but merit pay, reclassifications, health and retirement benefit increases add $320,000 to the budget. The district pays employees’ portion for CalPERS, and COLAs might be negotiated later.

--The budget includes $137,161 for salaries and benefits (up from $94,133) and $117,500 for supplies and services (up from $69,000) for the five elected directors. The latter figure includes five laptop PCs as well as travel and conference expenses.

--The district’s reserve fund is expected to be $19.4 million on June 30, 2012, down from a June 30, 2011, total of $29.9 million. The equity fund balance will total $153.5 million.

--The city is the largest water user, paying nearly $1.7 million last year, but that’s down from $1.9 million paid 10 years ago. Placentia-Yorba Linda schools paid $310,000, up from $32,000.

School district to spend reserves from past years

“Sadly necessary” and “sensibly prudent” are apt descriptions for actions taken on the 2011-12 operating budget and teacher contract by Placentia-Yorba Linda school trustees.

Another year of expenditures exceeding income--with the deficit eliminated by spending funds saved from more plush times--is a sad but necessary fact-of-life for stakeholders in the local school district this fiscal year, with a similar situation is projected for 2012-13.

The deficit would have been much larger without significant salary and benefit reductions for the district’s teachers and administrators. The five elected trustees also will take a salary cut “equal to the percent taken through furlough days” by the employee groups.

But sensibly prudent are contract provisions that would double the number of furlough days and revisit wage and benefit levels if income changes due to more cuts in funding that might occur if the state’s rosy revenue projections aren’t met by year’s end.

Currently, expected revenue for 2011-12 stands at $185.4 million with $193.4 million in planned expenses. Employee salaries and benefits make up 88.5 percent of expenditures.

Even with spending some of the savings from prior years, the district anticipates ending with “available reserves” totaling nearly $8.8 million or 4.5 percent, still above the state “standard minimum reserve” of 3 percent.

Employee give-backs include $3.1 million in salaries and benefits. Some of the cash saved comes from four furlough days and a delay of “step” increases on the teachers’ salary schedule until next May. The step increases will not be paid retroactively.

Teachers earn more pay for each year worked up to a maximum of 13 years, after which increases accrue on four-year intervals to a 30-year maximum. “Column” raises earned for additional education will not be curtailed.

Teacher furlough days are Sept.2 and June 18, and teacher/student furlough days Nov. 23 and March 16. Up to four more days might be added, if the base revenue limit funded by the state budget falls below $5,221 per average daily attendance.

Also, teacher wages and benefits could be refigured if base revenue funds are less than $4,891 or more than $5,221 per average daily attendance.

All management employees will share the furlough pain, including the four assistant superintendents and Superintendent Dennis Smith, who’ll miss five days of pay. The trustee trim cuts $195 from each member’s $9,000 annual stipend.

Projected enrollment for 2011-12 on all district campuses is 25,613 or an average daily attendance of 24,843, down from 24,891 in 2010-11 and 25,367 in 2006-07.

Breakdown for the 25,613 number: 12,183 in K-6; 4,948 in 7-8; 8,426 in 9-12; and 56 in George Key special education. High school enrollment: 2,463 Valencia, 1,999 El Dorado, 1,861 Esperanza, 1,823 Yorba Linda and 280 El Camino.

Interestingly, lottery income accounts for less than two percent of the district’s budget, $3.4 million or $128 per pupil. Officials say lottery dollars are “not a stable source of income,” since receipts have varied from $77 per pupil in 1991-92 to $180 in 1988-89.

Projections for the 2012-13 fiscal year: income $189.2 million, expenses $193.3 million and nearly $6 million in reserves, a little over 3 percent. Operating budget figures do not include Measures A and Y bond money spent on campus improvements.