Liquor License Moratorium

City Commissioner Chuck Semchena has provided this position paper re the Ballot Proposal asking residents to approve a 2-year moratorium on the transfer of liquor licenses from outside Royal Oak.

Providing public safety services is the most important role of City government. Police must be available to protect us in all four corners of Royal Oak, not just in the downtown. During times of economic crisis, you would think that the City’s elected officials and candidates would rally around this principle. Instead, many have decided that rubberstamping new liquor license applications are more important. They falsely claim to support economic growth, but fail to address the additional costs to taxpayers of policing the new saloons.

Current and past police chiefs have recommended against additional liquor licenses because they don’t have enough manpower to police more Megabars and the rest of the city. Due to the budget crisis our police department has been dramatically reduced. We already exceed the state mandated quota for liquor licenses because politicians have voted to transfer more into the City. More nightclubs will require additional police services to control the fights, noise, public urination, vomiting, and other crimes. I fear that a reduced police force cannot respond to additional problems and also protect us in our neighborhoods.

In general, additional bars and saloons do not provide more tax revenue than retail stores of similar size, while the expense of providing police service to bars is greater. Common sense tells us that bar patrons will cause more police problems than retail/office/residential users. In addition, the proposed Megabars are in the DDA district that receives the tax revenue, not the city’s general fund that is used to pay for police.

The city’s Master Plan encourages economic growth, and creates a downtown district with a goal of obtaining the appropriate mix of retail, office, residential, service, commercial and entertainment uses. The plan calls for a balance of uses, not a large saloon and bar district that will cost more to police than the tax revenue it brings in.

Who will pay the cost if more Megabars are transferred into the downtown? YOU AND I WILL!! As sure as the sun will rise, the politicians who want more bars will ask you to vote for a big tax increase to pay for additional police. Of course, this would occur after election or reelection in November.

This is why I proposed an ordinance to stop additional liquor license transfers into the City for a period of two years. On a 3 to 3 vote, the ordinance did not pass. Former Commissioners Laura Harrison and Andy Prentice then circulated a petition and gathered enough signatures to place the ordinance on November’s ballot. Voters can now decide if providing pubic safety in their neighborhoods is more important than bars, saloons, and tax increases.

Charles Semchena

Royal Oak City Commissioner

Other Voices

Demanding a moratorium reflects a lack of confidence in the competence and judgment, even the integrity, of elected officials. Every concern raised in Commissioner Semchena's position paper, at left, can be and has been addressed on a case-by-case basis, as required by the City Charter:

Chapter 14, Section 22. The Commission may by ordinance limit the number of places where intoxicating liquors may be sold and for which licenses may be issued; the terms and conditions upon which such licenses may be granted; restrict the territory within which said places where intoxicating liquors may be sold, shall be located; prescribe rules and regulations for the conducting of said places where intoxicating liquors may be sold, and the conditions upon which said license may be annulled, revoked, or cancelled, and may also, by resolution, prescribe the location of said places where intoxicating liquors may be sold, within the proper territory. All subject to the Constitution and General Laws of the State.

For context, also see: Liquor Talk . . . LCC . . . Liquor Licenses

§ “It’s The Economy, Stupid”

In these tough economic times, Royal Oak needs to welcome all ideas that have the potential to enhance Royal Oak as an entertainment venue as well as other types of business investment. Investors should be encouraged to continue investment into the development of Downtown Royal Oak and all corners of Royal Oak.

What Chuck Semchena doesn’t want you to know:

1) Crime is down in Royal Oak based on the current FBI crime statistics just published.

2) Property crime has dropped 41% since 1999.

3) Royal Oak is safer now that it has ever been.

4) The police have and continue to protect us with the top and utmost professionalism.

5) The DDA is paying for three dedicated officers to help patrol our downtown. In addition, the DDA supports the cost of the Court House, and Parking in the downtown.

6) New businesses mean no new taxes for homeowners.

7) The only people that support a “PARTIAL Moratorium” are a few that don’t believe in competition.

The LCC and the City Commission already have 36 criteria’s for “denying” any liquor licenses transfer or current in-town license. The city has already “denied” several licenses based on policy staffing, size, location, parking (which I still feel is not a problem), and yes “DANCING.”

Limiting new business development that may need a liquor license such as a hotel and not being able to grant that would be “BAD Government” that is why I do not support this ballot initiative. I want my elected officials to be able to make that determination based on it being good business for Royal Oak.

Join me in voting “NO” on the moratorium on November 3rd.

Gary Lelito
Royal Oak City Commissioner

Moratorium opponents create a website
The anti anti-moratorium campaign is building steam. Literature drops and mailings have been reinforced with a website on which opponents of a liquor license moratorium post long and detailed arguments. City Commissioner Gary Lelito provides the link: http://www.friendsofroyaloak.org/

Also see:

Protect Royal Oak: www.protectroyaloak.com

Royal Oak Chamber of Commerce: www.virtualroyaloak.com

About the liquor moratorium
A Joint Conversation which didn't quite come off
The debate over the proposed moratorium on transferring out-of-city liquor licenses into Royal Oak has become personalized. Commissioners Chuck Semchena and Gary Lelito are perceived as the faces of the debate, so I invited them to a Joint Coffee Conversation. Gary's schedule was such that the only time he and Chuck could agree upon was a 7 a.m. breakfast.

My reply: "I'm retired, I don't do 7 a.m. meetings." So they were kind enough to meet with me separately.

In those conversations, we addressed two dimension of the moratorium debate: (1) the validity of the arguments for and against the moratorium, and (2) the impact that alleged financial contributions are having or have had on positions the commissioners take or have taken. In addition, the nearby paragraph from a VersagiVoice essay re ethics has been interpreted by some as an attack on Semchena and Mike Andrzejak.

I'll deal with the money dimension next week. For now, let's address the arguments. Chuck's, Gary's, and my reasoning are all presented on the Ballot Issue page. Obviously, Lelito's statement personalizes the debate, with language like "What Chuck Semchena doesn't want you to know." And in a second piece of literature he distributed -- "paid for by Friends of Downtown Royal Oak " -- "Mr. B's Bar" is named. Despite the aggressive tone, though, Gary offers counterarguments which are both as reasoned and as speculative as are Chuck's.

During our follow-up conversations each commissioner repeated and reinforced his arguments.

Chuck reminded me of his consistency about liquor licenses since his first success with a moratorium in the '90s. He fears that unrestricted establishment of more bars could lead to the the crimes and related problems which that moratorium addressed. "Public safety resources are diluted when more saloons are added. We will have less manpower in the near future. How do opponents propose to keep all four corners of the city safe?"

Gary repeated his challenge that recent crime figures are down, not up, and adds, "If you can't measure it, you can't manage it," referring to speculations that the public safety downtown and in the neighborhoods might deteriorate. Chuck comes back with how inadvisable it is to "ignore the recommendations of the city's public safety experts, including the current and past police chiefs."

Gary maintains a moratorium would prevent transferring a license to the two potential hotels being talked about. Further, he sees the current in-city licenses, in escrow, as being "held hostage" He maintains that the 36 criteria in the city's liquor ordinance make it possible for CITCOM to consider bar seating, bar size, location, parking on a case-by-case basis.

Here, Chuck turns quasi-personal, suggesting that in recent years a majority of the commission have "rubber stamped" license applications. He sees "a lack of discretion" on the part of "a voting bloc" which for several years has "supported them all, big and small." He goes further: "Three of the four Commission candidates have been endorsed by some of these commissioners. They also appear to be ready to carry on with rubberstamping more liquor licenses."

Gary maintains that, personalities aside, two philosophies are competing, "fear versus optimism."

About parking, Lelito and Semchena cross swords during their service on the Liquor Control Committee. Chuck maintains parking is a serious problem downtown. Gary insists that he is "very often downtown and I have never had a parking problem."

Both commissioners had something to say about the role of financial contributions, a subject to which the nearby VersagiVoice paragraph is more pertinent. We'll summarize and comment about all that next week. -- FJV: 19 Oct 09

Money and Voting

About the ongoing debate over the liquor license moratorium.
Apparently drawing on public records, those opposing the moratorium state that $X dollars have been paid to two commissioners who have led the drive for the moratorium. The implication is obvious: The vote of those commissioners has been bought by an existing license holder who is attempting to avoid more competition. If true, that is certainly unethical. If a quid pro quo can be proved, the action can be considered criminal. If residents are convinced the commissioners behaved unethically, they can move to recall the officials. If someone is convinced that a bribe can be proved, legal action can be initiated. Once again. The public knows all that. How does a revised ethics ordinance improve on that?

The words in the box above appeared in the essay in which I maintained that wordy ethics codes or ethics ordinances are not needed to protect the public. Egregiously improper behavior comes to residents' attention in several ways and voters have recourse, if they want, to punish those elected officials of whom they disapprove..

Because attentive city hall observers know who the "two commissioners" are, some readers interpreted the message as a direct attack on Commissioners Andrzejak and Semchena. No, the information is offered as a generic mini-tutorial for voters.

A related development was the naming, by opponents of the liquor license moratorium, of "Mr. B's Pub" as one source, along with "other bars," of the campaign contributions referred to. And the personalized and public dispute about the moratorium between Commissioners Semchena and Lelito has added a further emotional tone to the speculation.

It would be unproductive to make too much of all this. (Disclosure, I have served on several campaign committees, including a successful one for a former commissioner and a failed one for my wife's run for commissioner.)

Simply, both newbies and incumbents get money from everywhere. Besides from friends and families, a candidate will receive contributions mostly from people who agree with the candidate's mindset -- and from some who disagree with that mindset.

For examples, from all sides in this dispute, I have been given data -- claimed to be from public records -- which, taken as a whole, show the same contributors giving to incumbents who have voted in favor of and opposed to, specifically, liquor licenses. Really suspicious voters complain that this or that elected official will publicly vote against a contributor after privately assuring that contributor that a sure majority will vote in the contributor's favor.

Even on non-alcohol matters, when the data seem to show contributors donating to officials identified as pro or anti - development or a change in a plan of operation, the suspicious pay scrupulous attention to how much the contributor gave to each side. They feel confident maintaining, without proof, that this contribution bought that vote.

Back to the point of that tutoring paragraph:
Suspicious voters congenitally infer that contributions are made in the expectation of automatic favorable voting on any issue of concern to the contributor. Crooks aside, the real world hope is that the official will listen attentively to all sides of the debate..

There are ways to punish elected officials when they are perceived as having behaved unethically or illegally:
Don't return them to office. Recall them. File legal charges against them.