East Bay council member proposes ban on new liquor stores

Moratorium proposal follows recent planning commission approval of another liquor store in western Antioch.

With liquor stores outnumbering grocery stores in some underserved areas of Antioch, Councilwoman Monica Wilson is calling for a ban on new liquor stores and a temporary moratorium on such applications.

Wilson, during a news conference at City Hall on Tuesday morning, called for the ban and 45-day urgency ordinance to halt new applications until the council can consider any action on its rules regarding future stores.

“Some of the liquor stores in Antioch have become magnets for illicit activity and crime,” Wilson said. “People in our community deserve better.”

The action follows a split 3-to-4 planning commission vote on Feb. 15 in which a new liquor store was approved at 2651 Somersville Road despite resistance from neighbors. Seeing that there were already eight liquor store licenses within two miles of the future store and only two grocery stores offering health food options, Wilson is asking the council to consider an appeal of the commission’s recent approval.

“I’m officially calling on Mayor (Lamar) Thorpe to start the appeals process for this liquor store application,” she said, noting she has not made her mind up on that particular application. “This decision potentially has city-wide implications concerning public safety, social determinants of health and quality of life.”

Wilson noted that currently Antioch has more than 50 active liquor licenses, many concentrated in high-crime areas and underserved communities with poor health outcomes.

“Frankly, we should learn from our past because we’ve been down this road before and we don’t have to look far to seeing examples of what happens when these types of liquor stores pop up and oversaturate our most vulnerable communities,” she said. “Just go down the street from the proposed site to see illicit activity that takes place around stores at Sycamore Plaza, Delta Fair shopping center, Bev Box on 10th Street, or Romi’s Liquor and 18th and Cavallo.”

Antioch Parks and Recreation Commission Vice Chair Dominique King, a business owner, also spoke against approving additional liquor store applications in Somersville area, nothing more than 150 business owners and residents have signed a petition against the store, which the commissioners approved last week.

“Residents that make up these neighborhoods and surrounding areas of Somersville listened to the mental gymnastics played to make this liquor store makes sense, to actively come up with ways to trick residents into believing and that this store would be everything but what this applicant wants approved,” she said of the Feb. 15 Planning Commission meeting.

“What we know is that no matter the spin you place on a name, no matter the extra aisle of unhealthy snacks you may offer or how you may try to beat the ratios of floor plan and liquor ratios as where they are in a store, what these commissioners have approved is a liquor store,” King said, flanked by neighbors of the future liquor store who oppose it.

King pointed to two other liquor stores, a convenience store and several gas stations that sell alcohol within a one-mile radius of the newly approved one on Somersville Road.

“This is overkill,” she said. “Current business owners have expressed that should this business open, they will take their business elsewhere. They have expressed that this area, Somerville Plaza and the surrounding area is home to violent crime, burglary, vandalism and that we are not OK with losing multiple businesses and in favor of one business we do not support.”

“Our children should not have more access to alcohol than they do healthy safe spaces, our unhoused should not have more access to alcohol than they do resources,” King said.

Wilson added that the 94509 zip code where the new liquor store is slated to locate scores low on a state index that measures diversity, equity and healthy outcomes of neighborhoods.

“All communities deserve better regardless of income level regardless of what side of Antioch people reside in and regardless of the neighborhood they live in,” she added.

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