A controversial effort to allow legal alcohol sales in the Southwest Alaska community of Bethel for the first time in four decades has been tabled by the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board until it holds a hearing in the community to gauge public sentiment.
The five-member board on Wednesday tabled the application by Bethel Native Corp., through Bethel Spirits LLC, for a liquor store in the community of 6,300. A hearing date was tentatively set for Thursday, Oct. 22, in Bethel. A final decision on the hearing date will be made on Sept. 15.
The move for a hearing in the divided community, which has long been plagued with alcohol-related crime and social tumult, was supported by Bethel Mayor Richard Robb.
"Some people in Bethel would definitely invite that," he said during a call into the board's meeting.
In April, the Bethel City Council narrowly voted to protest the application, citing the high rates of emergency calls related to alcohol and other factors. Critics of the application have said a liquor store would lead to more of those calls and greater rates of child neglect, fetal alcohol syndrome and crime, both in Bethel and in surrounding villages.
Bethel voted to be a wet community -- allowing sales -- in 2009. But efforts to open liquor stores since then have failed. Citizen comments at city hearings this year have overwhelmingly opposed the liquor store, said Patty Burley, Bethel city attorney.
In addition to the city council protest, the ABC board has received 28 written objections to the application. Opponents include the regional hospital based in Bethel and the Association of Village Council Presidents, a regional tribal consortium.
The board has also received about 500 letters in support, primarily form letters signed by residents that said Bethel has voted to be a wet community. The letters said the city is flooded with illegal alcohol sales because while people can import as much alcohol as they'd like, there's no legal mechanism to allow sales.
Ana Hoffman, president and CEO of Bethel Native Corp., said that as she gathered letters, many of the signers thanked her for tackling the issue.
"The time has come for the residents of Bethel to have the same liberties and opportunities and be governed by the same laws all other Alaskans enjoy," she said.
Before discussion turned to the proposed hearing in Bethel, the board, in a 3-2 vote, rejected the protest by the Bethel City Council as "arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable."
ABC board member Tom Manning said he voted against the protest because not allowing a liquor store would only encourage more illegal, unregulated sales.
Board Chair Bob Klein was one of two members voting in support of the city council protest, saying the council has worked hard to understand how the community feels about the issue, including hosting public hearings. The council has also set a citywide advisory vote on the topic for Oct. 6.
"It's a very slippery slope for this board to assume we know what's best for a village or a city," he said.
During Wednesday's meeting, some board members suggested that special conditions could be applied to the store that would help ease some of the community's concerns.
Board member Marvin Yoder, formerly of Galena and now from Palmer, said the package store in Galena worked with police to ensure that alcohol purchased from the store could be tracked.
Hoffman of Bethel Native Corp. was asked if she'd go above and beyond city and state guidelines typically required by operators to address community fears.
She said the business would be operated according to the law and that it should be treated just as any other business would.
The advisory vote in Bethel this fall won't be the first on the topic. The city council called a citywide advisory vote in 2010. Voters then said they wanted no liquor sales -- even at restaurants. Weeks after that vote, the ABC board rejected six liquor license applications.