ALCOHOL-SALES RULE LOOMS LIQUOR OUTLETS WOULD BE FARTHER APART, REGULATED.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Staff Writer

PALMDALE - Liquor stores, bars and convenience stores would be kept at least 1,000 feet apart in a proposal endorsed by planning commissioners for tightening the city's 11-year-old alcohol-sales ordinance.

The proposed new restrictions would also require a special permit for new supermarkets, restaurants and other businesses that sell alcohol, which city officials said will let them crack down on businesses that cause trouble or whose patrons do.

``That's the reason for an ordinance: make sure we don't have a concentration and make sure we give the city attorney and code enforcement the maximum amount of power to take quick action,'' Commission Chairman John Mayfield said.

Alcohol-control advocates and two community groups have been pushing for tightening city regulations on businesses that sell alcohol.

They point to Los Angeles County Department of Health Services statistics calling alcohol dependence the No. 1 cause of shortened lives in the Antelope Valley and that show that injury traffic crashes involving alcohol between 2000 and 2003 increased two to three times as fast as population growth.

Close to 80 percent of local high school juniors say it is easy or very easy to get alcohol, county statistic show.

The ultimate decision on the new rules will be made by the City Council after the Planning Commission makes a recommendation. The Planning Commission is expected to resume its examination of the proposal April 7.

The Greater Antelope Valley Association of Realtors endorsed the proposed new rules.

Palmdale Chamber of Commerce representatives said they were concerned that new regulations could hurt businesses and property owners without solving any alcohol problems, but say the present proposal is not unduly restrictive.

``We're OK with it,'' chamber President Isaac Barcelona said.

As endorsed Thursday night by the commission, the new rules would keep bars, liquor stores and convenience markets or gas stations that sell alcohol at least 1,000 feet apart, double the present minimum separation.

They would have to be at least 500 feet from homes, up from the present 300.

Liquor stores, convenience markets and gas stations selling alcohol would also have to be at least 1,000 feet from schools and day-care centers, also double the present distance.

No minimum distances would be imposed between supermarkets, drug stores and restaurants that sell alcohol, but those kinds of businesses before they open would be required to obtain conditional use permits. Conditional use permits require public hearings and could add restrictions on business hours, employee training and other areas.

The proposed changes would also tighten the city's controls over restaurants that on evenings or weekends become nightclubs, allowing them to be treated like bars.

Existing businesses that sell alcohol could be ordered to get the permits if they halt operations or markedly change them, or if they or their patrons become nuisances, city officials said.

Representatives of community groups Pueblo Y Salud and the Antelope Valley Tobacco, Alcohol and Other Drugs Coalition, have been lobbying for greater city controls on alcohol sales.

At Thursday's hearing, they urged commissioners to double to 1,000 feet the distance bars or liquor and convenience stores must be kept from churches, schools and parks. They also urged cutting in half the amount of space supermarkets and other nonliquor stores can devote to alcohol.

Pueblo Y Salud executive director Javier Flores said the groups want to keep Palmdale from having ``an alcohol outlet and a liquor outlet on every corner.''

Commissioners didn't take them up on the suggestions.

But they did agree to a suggestion by former Los Angeles County Commission on Alcoholism member Ray Chavira that bars, liquor and convenience stores and gas stations selling alcohol be kept 1,000 feet from hospitals.

The commissioners were swayed by testimony from an executive of the hospital chain planning a Palmdale hospital.

Lancaster Community Hospital chief operating officer Ed Callahan told commissioners that patients sometimes slip out of hospitals to get alcohol. Sometimes they never come back, sometimes they fall off curbs and hurt themselves, and sometimes hospital staff has to call police to check on them.

``One of the problems at Antelope Valley Hospital was actually people leaving the hospital and going down the street and buying liquor,'' said Callahan, who recently left Antelope Valley Hospital to work for Lancaster Community.

Lancaster Community's chain, Pennsylvania-based Universal Health Services, is planning a Palmdale hospital near Palmdale Boulevard and Tierra Subida Road.

Charles F. Bostwick, [phone]

chuck.bostwick(at)dailynews.com