Liquor stores: magnets for violence

By David Muhammad

There is no one reason or cause of violence. Violence is a very complex problem with no easy solutions. But there are some major indicators of violent crime: drug and alcohol use, selling drugs or being in a gang or crew, a lack of money, access to guns and a general devaluing of life.

Many of these indicators are associated with the ubiquitous fixture in high-crime neighborhoods: liquor stores. This is where you find hard liquor, tobacco, unhealthy snacks and, in some, you can also find illegal drugs and guns. Outside many of these corner stores, one finds loitering and open-air drug markets.

At a community meeting to discuss street violence in 2001, a Richmond Police Department official reported that an analysis of violent crime had revealed that nearly 70 percent of the city’s violent crime occurred on 20 corners, or hot spots. The majority of these hot sports were adjacent to liquor stores.

In impoverished or working-class communities that also suffer from substandard schools and other social ills, there is a liquor store on nearly every corner. Due to the lack of larger nearby markets, liquor stores sometimes become neighborhood grocery stores. Though the products are often more expensive and of much less quality than big chain grocery stores, because of access problems, liquor stores are where many poor families go shopping.

A 2003 report published by the Marin Institute revealed that in the predominately black neighborhoods in West Oakland, there is one alcohol outlet for every 298 residents. But in Piedmont, the nearby mostly white affluent Oakland community, there is one alcohol outlet for every 3,000 residents.

Not only are there more liquor stores in West Oakland, but there is a huge difference in what the alcohol outlets sell. In Piedmont you are likely to find “fine wine and spirits,” while in high crime neighborhoods you find cheap, hard liquor. You can purchase malt liquor, like cans of 211, which just happens to be the California penal code number for armed robbery. It is no wonder that so many people arrested for robbery were intoxicated when they committed their crimes.

In addition to alcohol, at these liquor stores you can buy cigars that are emptied of their tobacco filling and replaced with marijuana, creating the infamous combination called a blunt. Now liquor stores are beginning to sell just the cigar rappers to make it easier.

Then there is the culture of death paraphernalia that can be purchased at many liquor stores in the form of t-shirts and hats with messages that promote violence and drug use — images of marijuana leafs, guns and the ever popular “Stop Snitchin’” slogan. Liquor stores have become the depots of the culture of death.

This is why so many people quietly supported the acts of vandalism allegedly perpetrated on Oakland liquor stores by members of Your Black Muslim Bakery.

Last year, the Urban Strategies Council published a report analyzing the connection between liquor store outlets and violence in Oakland. The study confirmed what is obvious to those who live in these neighborhoods or who work to combat violent crime: Communities that have a higher density of liquor stores also have higher rates of violence.

“Liquor Outlets: A Preliminary Analysis of the Relationship Between Off-Sale Liquor Outlets and Crime in Oakland for 2007” states: “Our correlation analysis revealed that the rate of liquor outlets is significantly correlated to the rate of arrests for 19-29-yearolds, violent crime, unemployment and to the rate of Part I & II crimes. In fact, there is almost a total match between the rate or liquor outlets and overall Part I & II crimes.”

In Richmond’s Iron Triangle community, the corner of Nevin and Fifth avenues was long a major hot spot for crime and violence. Makeshift memorials were a constant fixture on the four corners of the intersection. But a few years ago the liquor store on this corner was closed, torn down, rebuilt and no longer used as a liquor store. The rate of violence on this one corner has plummeted.

It may seem too simple for some, but one tactic on the frontlines of the battle to stem the tide of street violence might be to close the liquor stores.

Originally published March 19-25, 2008