Well, 'tis the season!
I’ve seen a few city bus lines that go into troubled neighborhoods and have really thick (not sure if bulletproof or just plain plexiglass) clear doors that slide over to cover the driver… Problem is the crime, not the means to protect ones self from it. That Philly politician is just really reaching.
What would the reaction be if right-wing city officials decided to prevent clinics offering abortions from taking security precautions and hiring guards, on the grounds that it was a grievous insult to peaceful anti-abortion protesters?* :dubious:
*I know, don’t give them any ideas.
The council can vote on anything they like but that doesn’t mean it’s enforceable. I don’t see where they have any legal basis to ban safety items.
That’s exactly what they are. “Restaurants” are allowed to sell beer to take away, up to a limit of 2 six-packs per transaction. Over the past few years a lot of supermarkets (& some convenience stores) have set up cafes where you can sit down and eat prepared food, and also happen to have coolers full of beer for sale. The catch is they also have to allow alcohol consumption on site just like a real restaurant would. This same rule has recently been applied to wine sales. My local Wegman’s has a food court set up (which they had long before they sold booze), but I’ve never actually seen anyone drinking the beer or wine they just bought there.
It’s a racial issue. Those businesses are primarily owned by Asian-Americans. I don’t know if they’d be wanting to shut them down if they were primarily African-American owned, but I sure as hell know they wouldn’t use their lives as hostages to their agenda.
As a Penna resident our alcohol laws are weird but I don’t see how reducing the safety of employees should ever be used as a tactic to undermine them.
I live in North East Philly. I believe all of one person thinks this is about race. The rest of city council wants to shut down nuisance bars.
These places are legally classified as restaurants. They either have no kitchen or a tiny kitchen which is perpetually closed. They do not have bathrooms for customers. They do not have adequate seating (one station actually showed a big stack of plastic lawn chairs in a corner). The draw of these businesses is that they sell alcohol. They sell it by the shot and state that it must be consumed on premises.
OK, but this proposed ban seems like an extraordinarily stupid way for the city council to try to deal with the issue, and one practically guaranteed to get people on the Internet all riled up.
“Restaurants” with no bathrooms: Does the city not have any sort of power to enforce any kind of health code against “restaurants”? “Restaurants” that don’t have a (working) kitchen: Can they not make some sort of enforceable rule about the percentage of an establishment’s revenue that must derive from food sales to qualify as a “restaurant”? (I’m sure that could be gamed to some extent, but from your description, they aren’t really selling food at all.)
When a corrupt local government does something that doesn’t seem to make sense it’s safe to assume a corrupt reason. And the obvious corrupt reason is that these types of businesses aren’t the only ones violating the restaurant regulations. If they went after the Asian liquor stores on those grounds, they’d have to go after other businesses that are supposed to be restaurants but aren’t. And who might be better about donating money to the right officials.
Regulatory enforcement is not hard. So there has to be a reason that they are taking this weird step to try to get the Asian liquor stores to close, rather than just enforcing existing regulations.
No it isn’t.
It seems you know little of PA state liquor laws. Liquor can only be bought from state stores (note this may be changing. Wawa and Sheets have both recently gotten license to sell alcohol in certain stores). If you want beer, you go instead to a beer distributor.
These establishments claim to be restaurants. If you admit they are in fact liquor stores, then you’ve admitted they are liars gaming the system.
Last time I checked, it actually was hard.
Under existing regulations, any liquor store other than a state store IS illegal. Which is why these places pretend to be restaurants. As restaurants, they game the system.
Then what’s so hard about shutting them down? And if they can ignore those regulations, won’t it also be easy to ignore the regulations against bullet proof glass?
No, that makes no sense. I’m 99% certain that the commission will have those protective barriers removed as quickly as possible. Yet leave the restaurant regulations unenforced. Since you apparently know more about this, explain to me how that works.
I don’t have all the answers. I just know more about this issue because it’s been in my local paper and all over the local news.
The city government has been trying to shut down these “restaurants” for quite some time. I honestly don’t know how they are still open.
How are they different from other liquor/beer establishments?
I’m a little confused - it seems like these beer delis are some strange mixture of a convenience store/bar that sell beer for off-premise consumption and serve shots for on-premises consumption while masquerading as restaurant. But it seems from what I’ve read that bars can sell beer to be taken away and sell shots for on premises consumption- so I’m wondering what the advantage is to pretending to be a restaurant rather than getting a bar license? Or is it that that there is technically no such thing as a bar in PA, that every establishment that would be called a bar in other places has a restaurant license and must have working kitchen , some specified amount of seats, and an adequate supply of food etc?
They are an establishment purportedly a restaurant, whose main line of business is sale of beer for off-premise consumption. There are hundreds of supermarkets and even convenience stores that set up a “restaurant” in the store where they sell beer for off-premise consumption. The restaurant is merely a fig leaf.
I think the major difference is that these particular establishments are operating in areas that are low income and high crime with few actual supermarkets or restaurants. And they are operated by an “alien” ethnic group, seen as exploiting these circumstances. They are also alleged to sell drug paraphernalia and precursors to other drugs. And their pretense to being a restaurant is even thinner than those of the supermarkets operating in “nicer” areas.
In the last year, there has been some deregulation or rationalization of Pennsylvania’s screwy alcohol laws. Perhaps the city also hopes to create market space for “more responsible” players to enter the market as well.
Why don’t they just decrease the number of liquor licenses?
Also, if these are truly crime magnets then use that as the criteria for choosing who gets to keep their license.
I am racially offended by the bulletproof glass they have at banks. It’s like they’re treating me like a criminal even though I am not a criminal.
Sure there are criminals out there but I am not one of them. Why do they have bullet-proof glass for when I’m there? It makes me feel sad.
Asian Lives Matter
I thought adaher was proposing a reason. You can’t shut them down without shutting down the “restaurants” run by other (white) people who are not easy political targets. Its really their own fault for being politically complacent, that’s what makes them easy political taargets. The LA Korean community didn’t get politically active until half of Koreatown burned during the LA riots as police just drove through their neighborhoods as their shops were getting looted and burned.
I grew up with Korean storeowners like this, they’re not rich, not if they’re still working in a neighborhood where they have to work behind bulletproof glass.