Content area
Full Text
Hollywood may be preparing a toast to its revival as a star-studded tourist draw--but not everybody wants to drink to the occasion.
After years of battling neighborhood crime and alcohol-related high jinks, some residents say they've simply lost their taste for booze. They are appealing to state and local officials to swear off the granting of new alcohol permits to liquor stores and nightclubs all over Hollywood.
"We're running the risk of turning into the New Orleans French Quarter, where drinking goes on all day and crime goes sky-high," said Joe Shea, a member of United Streets of Hollywood and the Ivar Hill Community Assn. Shea and others say that although crime has dropped significantly throughout Hollywood in the last several years, they fear that the ready availability of alcohol might fuel a comeback.
These people have taken a particularly dim view of a spate of liquor permit applications filed since January but not yet acted on by the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.
Hollywood business leaders and officials concede that liquor stores have been trouble spots. But they say that a broad alcohol ban could throw a wet blanket over Hollywood's improving economy. Clubs and restaurants that serve alcohol are crucial to the area's redevelopment, they say.
"What we would be concerned about would be a proliferation of scuzzy little clubs on corners that bring in addicts and abusers," said Merle Singer of the Yucca Corridor Coalition of Property Owners and Managers. "But if we have high-class developments where I can have a glass of wine with my husband, that's all right."
Most recently, Shea and others have asked the state liquor agency to reverse its granting of a license to...