Agenda - Planning Commission - 10/06/1992

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CASE # 3 QUESTION OF SQUARE FOOT REQUIREMENT FOR OFF-SALE LIQUOR ESTABLISHMENTS By: Police Chief Mike Auspos and Zoning Administrator Sylvia Frolik Background: During the recent license renewals for off-sale liquor sales, the question came up regarding the 4,000 square 'foot requirement for off-sale liquor stores. Specifically, this concerned Ralph's Highway #10;Liquors in that at one time the business had over the 4,000 square foot minimum requirement a~nd now, due to the opening of a pawn shop licensed by the City, the off-sale portion has less than 4,0,00 square feet available for retail sales and storage. The license was granted for the 1992-1993 year and, during the ensuing ten months, Staff was to check into the history of the square foot requirement and to determine its necessity. Observations: Under the old City Code, Chapter 130.09, Ordinance #78-2, adopted in May 1978, there was a 6,000 square foot requirement; 3,000 square feet on the ground floor and 3,000 square feet in a basement for storage. The space was to be used totally for the use of off-sale liquor. Again under the old City Code~ Ordinance #79-8, adopted in August 1979, amended Ordinance #78-2 to require a minimum of 2,000 square feet on the ground floor level and 2,000 square feet either in the basement or ~ound floor for storage. The entire space was to be devoted exclusively to the use of the off-sale liquoir establishment. I have reviewed the Ad Hoc Liquor and License Commission Report presented to Ramsey City Council on November 11, 1981 and it makes no comment as to the rationale for any square foot requirement in that study. Present City Code, Section 7.53.11, Subd. 6, requires 4,000 square feet of area consisting of public sales display area and/or private storage area and all this area must be for exclusive use of the off-sale liquor business. I have been unable to find any minutes of discussions regarding this subject either of the City Council or in the Ad Hoc Liquor and License Committee Report. Information regarding square foot requirement has been very hard to come up with. The majority of the Metro Area cities I called have called have municipal owned liquor stores and those that don't tell me :their ordinances have no square footage requirements. None of the city clerks or licensing persons,I spoke with had any idea of the history of such a requirement. The League of Minnesota Cities 'sent me information by none of it dealt specifically with the subject we have in our ordinancei Their model ordinance contains no reference to square footage requirements. The closest I could find is a reference in Brooklyn Park's ordinance to a requirement that off-sale liquor licenses be limited to commercial areas having 50,000 square feet of commercial space. I believe this is to limit ~them to what could be called quality shopping malls or strips. Coon Rapids recently sold their municipal liquor outlets to private parties and, as an admittedly "protectionist" move, used the 4,500 square foot space of their smallest store as a standard. This was meant to :give some temporary edge to the buyers thereby making the deal more attractive. Another reason advanced by them was that this would tend to keep small stores out, thereby lessening the number of places that the police would have to monitor for problems.