Members of the Venice Neighborhood Council (VNC) Land Use and Planning and the Neighborhood Committee met Tuesday night to discuss the proliferation and concentration of alcohol sites in the Venice area.

Because Venice has 32 alcohol outlets per 10,000 residents while Los Angeles City Council District 11 has only 21.5 alcohol outlets per 10,000 residents many wanted to limit sites (one of the “whereas” statements). There really wasn’t any clear proposal as to how to limit sites.

Some also felt there was a correlation of alcohol sales to crime and safety in a neighborhood. One person brought up the fact that crime was less where one bar was put in on Ocean Front Walk.

Stewart Oscars came prepared with a resolution to limit the number of alcohol sales–onsite and offsite in the Venice area. The resolution went thru many transformations by the group. Marc Salzberg, vice president of VNC and head of the Neighborhood Committee, sent the latest version of the resolution via email to Update next day. Resolution will be presented at the next VNC board meeting. It reads as follows, excluding the “whereas” statements:

Therefore, be it resolved, the Venice Neighborhood Council calls on the City Council Member for CD11 to introduce a measure in the Los Angeles City Council that would create an alcohol establishment enforcement /compliance unit, fully funded by a regulatory fee on establishments selling alcohol.

The problem, which was discussed, was that many organizations are involved with enforcement of alcohol but nothing gets accomplished.

Right now enforcement of city and state alcohol laws and conditions of use falls on a number of government agencies including the Los Angeles Police Department, the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety, the Los Angeles Department of Planning and the State of California Alcohol Beverage Control Board, leading to uneven, inefficient control and without a single point of responsibility.

The City Planning Department’s new Code Compliance Unit (CCU) was discussed at the meeting. CCU is in its infancy stage and is planned to be functional by January 2014. Many at a Sunday meeting of CCU with Rocky Wells, CCU’s new head, wanted to propose a resolution to the City Council to add a money fine for noncompliance and fund a group of inspectors needed to do the inspection.

Marc wanted to make sure the Venice resolution regarding alcohol was in sync with the resolution to be proposed for the new CCU unit. Some thought perhaps the new CCU could become the central source for handling alcohol site enforcement and preliminary selection in conjunction with the State and local agencies. But the group took a stand and the resolution states “create an alcohol establishment enforcement /compliance unit, fully funded by a regulatory fee on establishments selling alcohol.”