Yorba Linda's quirky liquor saga continues

From a single license tightly held for years to keep liquor sales out of Yorba Linda to today's 79 licenses and a recent application that will add sales to an area a state agency defines as “over-concentrated,” this community's quirky saga regarding alcoholic beverages continues.

Here's an update to two 2011 columns about legends surrounding Yorba Linda's first liquor license issued after Prohibition ended in 1933. (If you can't find these July 21 and 28 columns in the Yorba Linda Star print edition archive, I'll email them to you on request.)

Current licenses include 47 on-sale retail (restaurants, bars), 22 off-sale retail (grocery, liquor stores) and 10 non-retail (manufacturers, wholesalers), according to the state Alcoholic Beverage Control board.

An application for an off-sale license recently filed by The Fresh Market, still slated to open at the former Yorba Linda Bowl site northwest of the library, prompted the city to formalize procedures historically used to process requests from areas of “over-concentration.”

The state defines “over-concentration” as a license ratio in a census tract population that exceeds the ratio of licenses issued for the county-wide population (in this case, tract 2180.02).

Approval for a license in an over-concentrated area requires a local governing body or designee to adopt a “finding of public convenience and necessity,” according to a report from David Brantley, the city's principal planner.

The city manager has served as the City Council's designee for decades, and now that role has been authorized by a council vote.

The Fresh Market's tract “is permitted to have four off-sale licenses and there are five existing at this time,” Brantley noted. “This is common within geographic areas that have a concentration of commercial-retail stores that sell alcoholic beverages for off-sale consumption.”

A “public convenience and necessity” finding was made for the nearby CVS Pharmacy in 2004. Then-City Manager Terry Belanger told the state the license “would afford city residents the ability to purchase alcoholic beverages...while shopping for other convenience items.”

He also noted “efficiencies that will reduce the length and number of vehicular trips needed to complete household shopping needs, thereby reducing traffic impacts on local streets....”

And he dismissed increased crime or loitering as problems, so an added license would “not prove detrimental to the public health, safety (or) welfare within the area.”

Applications must be reviewed by the Community Development Department to check compliance for zoning and conditional use permits and amendments. The Sheriff's Department checks for disqualifying criminal records of applicants, managers and managing officers of applicant corporations.

The city can request restrictions or file a protest to initiate a hearing, but state officials make the final determination on all applications.