Pacific Beach Advisory Board Wants to Restrict Alcohol Licensing

 

In Pacific Beach on Wednesday night during a public hearing, the Pacific Beach advisory panel voted to try and make some changes in the way alcohol licenses are distributed in the local area.

The title of the new fifty-eight pages of guidelines is “Alcohol License Policies and Issues in Pacific Beach” and this report received an 11-5 vote from the Pacific Beach advisory panel. The recommendations proposed in these guidelines have resulted in a conflict between restaurant owners and the Pacific Beach board. Civil litigation. The first recommendation that caused quite a stir is that the city should make businesses who serve alcohol attain conditional-use permits first before they can receive an official license. This is irritating to restaurant owners because it will be more of a challenge to obtain a license. The second recommendation is that police officers need to enforce the proposed regulations.

According to the Pacific Beach Planning group member Scott Chipman, he says “We like visitors, and we want more and more and more visitors…I wouldn’t care if 10,000 people came to Pacific Beach, as long as they’re not driving drunk and they’re not committing crime.” The Pacific Beach Planning Group, which is also the Pacific Beach advisory board explains that these new proposed regulations cannot be passed unless City Council adopts news regulations.

The board comprised of twenty members initially sent the report containing these regulations to City Council back in February; however, the guidelines were repealed in May because the report was presented improperly presented on the memo.