Hall Monitor this week is all about the ongoing contretemps over the Oregon Liquor Control Commission’s decision to give a full-on liquor license to the Cartlandia food cart pod out on SE 82nd—the first in the state.
Emails (pdf) that landed in my hands today, through a public records request, shed more light on the city’s strategizing. Turns out the city is doing more than just talking with its attorneys about a legal challenge of the OLCC’s decision: It also spent months trying to lobby sympathetic Oregon legislators to change the law preventing the OLCC from discriminating against carts. The emails also reveal that the city, despite its public pronouncements, isn’t really going to be content with stricter rules for carts: It doesn’t want ongoing alcohol service at carts at all.
In a somewhat surly note sent last month, Tom Bizeau, Commissioner Amanda Fritz’s chief of staff, chided the city’s liquor licensing guru, Theresa Marchetti, for even exploring a proposal for those stricter rules—because it didn’t hew to the city’s more extreme goal. Bizeau also wrote he wanted to “stall this just like the OLCC stalls us.”
And here’s an email from Andy Smith, one of the city’s lobbyists, sent to Marchetti in January that touches on his efforts to rally lawmakers to the city’s side. That was before the session that just ended… and, well, Cartlandia has its license and the OLCC has at least two more in the pipeline to consider.
I’m confused. So … the OLCC comes across as fairly progressive, while the city council looks like a bunch of sticks in the mud. Did I miss a memo somewhere?
I really don’t understand the objections at all, considering that the cart operators agreed to limited hours and segregated seating. It’s like a restaurant.
Either the city council is (or thinks they are) acting on behalf of reactionary neighbors or existing licensed restaurants. I can’t think of another explanation, and neither one is particularly sympathetic.
“Strict requirements on the cart pod” sounds good but doesn’t amount to much in practice. It is very hard to get the OLCC to act on a liquor license once they grant it. Things have to get really out-of-hand at an establishment for the OLCC to act, opening the door for lots of establishments which get away with being halfway-out-of-hand in perpetuity.
Just as tODD is confused by the City’s position, I am confused to find myself in agreement with them for once. This has the potential for too much local quality of life impact for the decision to be made by a board sitting in Salem.
I guess I have more faith in the OLCC’s willingness to investigate after having someone I know slapped with a huge fine for throwing a party and not checking the IDs of everyone before allowing them to serve themselves alcohol (to discover which they sent in a young-looking mole). But that was a few years ago, right before the head of the OLCC got arrested for drunkenly almost driving her car off a bridge. Maybe things have changed since then.
Blabby, I find it funny that every time I find myself siding with businesses over government, you come in and defend the government over business. The main “local quality of life impact” I can think of is people who like food carts and alcoholic beverages will be able to enjoy both at the same time. If people want to drink, there’s a bar across the street. There are maybe 4 or 5 cart pods that could meet the same requirements, which is about 700 short of the Mayor’s threat.
The quality of life argument re: liquor sales is like complaining about gay people or “coloreds” moving into the neighborhood, or the prohibition on marijuana. It is creating a boogie man for a problem that doesn’t exist. If it becomes a problem, then you deal with it.
I think the city/Sam’s beef is that now theyll have to actually consider regulating food carts. It’s one thing to turn a blind eye when there’s no real risk other than the occasional case of food poisoning. Now that booze is involved, the city is going to have to do some actual work. They hate that.
TheGolden: that’s the best, worst false equivalency I’ve read in a while.