West Montgomery Residents Pushing for Ban on Package Stores
Some West Montgomery residents are calling for a cap on package stores, saying there’s too many on that side of town. But how plausible is it to keep any more package stores from coming?
People who live in West Montgomery say package stores are taking over their part of town.
“You probably got about three down the street, four around the corner, a shot house over there,” says resident John Gordon. “It’s liquor everywhere.”
Montgomery City Councilman David Burkette says he hears it all the time from his constituents.
“The people of West Montgomery, at least in district four, are sick and tired of every time they have an economic development come up, it’s a package store, liquor store.”
Which is why Burkette says he’s asking for a cap on package stores.
“We do have enough privately owned package stores and there’s no way in the world that I can put a moratorium on it but I can ask for a cap.”
And he’s getting support from an unlikely ally.
“They got like 19 package stores and almost 20 ABC stores in Montgomery city and this city is too small,” says Mohammed Hassan.
Hassan has owned Capitol Food and Liquor Store for the past 10 years and says he supports a cap, not to limit competition, but because he says too many package stores will cause problems in the area.
“At least make it like five more package stores and put a cap on it,” he says. “That will be best.”
Montgomery Mayor Todd Strange says a cap is not in the best interest of the city.
” I don’t want us to get to be known as a city where we’re going to moratorium everything. We’re going to moratorium grocery stores, we’re going to moratorium cleaners, we’re going to moratorium restaurants.”
Some who live in West Montgomery disagree, saying they want something done about what they’re calling over saturation.
“That’s where they set them up at, the black neighborhoods and for us to become more lush heads and alcoholics so maybe they should try to put a cap on which stores are put in each neighborhood,” says resident Feronya Boykin.
Montgomery City Councilmen are set to discuss this at tomorrow’s council meeting.
