American Standard: Baltimore's New Prohibition Era? - UPDATED

by Benn Ray

Recently, I had a conversation with Baltimore Beer historian and former Baltimore Sun reporter Rob Kasper, and he dispelled a misconception I had held for a long time.

Maryland's nickname, "The Free State" has nothing to do with which side Maryland did or didn't come down on in the Civil War.

In fact, Maryland's nickname was coined decades later in the 1920s Prohibition-Era by then Baltimore Sun editor Hamilton Owens, in response to Georgia Congressman William D. Upshaw who accused our state of being a traitor to the union for never passing any kind of  Prohibition enforcement act.

See, Maryland didn't care for Prohibition, so we did nothing to enforce it. Thus, in that era, Maryland was a Free State in that you were pretty much free to get a drink even though it was technically illegal.

Now, nearly 100 years later, Baltimore seems to suddenly find itself being governed by new-Prohibitionists who want to make it increasingly difficult for us to get a drink.

Recently, new City Council member Nick Mosby (7th District) proposed legislation that prohibits anyone under 18 from entering a liquor store. Never mind that many liquor stores in the city carry non-age specific goods, like soda, ice, snacks, etc. Or, actually, that is the point of the legislation.

The intent here is to prevent the normalizing of youth from going into liquor stores. It also puts the criminality of enforcement on shop owners. But the result seems to be hardship for local businesses who, for years, have been serving their community by selling neighbors more than just booze.

Continuing this trend, city health officials are proposing essentially shutting down nearly 130 small businesses throughout Baltimore under the guise of public health and safety (they'll do this by zoning and pulling licenses despite the targeted businesses already being grandfathered in from previous zoning).

Our elected officials like to tell us small businesses are the backbone of our economy. They also like to tell us we can't afford things like firehouses and recreation centers because we don't have the tax revenue. And they like to tell us Baltimore needs jobs, jobs, jobs.

Shutting down nearly 130 stores throughout the city will further shrink tax revenues. It will put hundreds of people out of work. It will create blight in some neighborhoods, which leads to more crime - real crime - like prostitution and drug dealing.

Also, if the city is going to shut down businesses, aren't those businesses going to need to be compensated for their loss, inconvenience, hardship? Will that be covered by the money we don't have for our current programs and infrastructure?

When has an elected official in Baltimore, or a Maryland official for that matter, passed any new legislation crafted specifically to help small businesses? The point being, every time you hear a politician praise American small business, they've most likely voted for at least half a dozen bills that make small business more difficult.

In debates over big box stores coming into the city, one of the more ideological arguments corporatists float is that we don't want to make Baltimore City appear to be hostile to business.

I can't imagine anything more hostile to business than the city coming in and shuttering 130 small businesses, many of whom have been serving their community for years.

Officials are trying to spin this as an attempt to improve troubled neighborhoods by closing down predatory/exploitative liquor stores of the bulletproof glass wrap variety.

However, in the Hampden-area, there are 3 stores being targeted.
1. The Wine Underground (Evans Chapel Rd.) - a beloved neighborhood store that has already tried once to move into a traditional shopping plaza and away from residences and was blocked by a community organization who doesn't want any liquor stores in that plaza

2. Roland Park Liquors (Roland Ave.) - a liquor store I have used regularly for 12 years. In fact, I have them in my cell phone because they deliver and they carry a good selection of craft beer and decent whiskeys.

3. JT's (Falls Rd.) - A liquor store and local deli/market/carryout.

Interestingly, the most controversial liquor store in Hampden, the liquor store most detested by many in the community, Red Fish (Falls Rd. & 41st St) is not on the list.

If city leaders have their way, The Wine Underground, Roland Park Liquors and JTs will either have to find a new place to move (in a neighborhood that is, largely as a result of Red Fish, hostile to liquor stores moving) or change their business completely and no longer sell what they know how to sell and have been selling for years (a ridiculous if not financially disastrous expectation).

Also, the city will have established a precedent for shuttering local small businesses simply because they don't like the products they carry (while, I hasten to point out, bending over backwards to bring in big box development and corporate retail).

And just in case people think I'm being hyperbolic with my "New Prohibition Era" proclamation, moonshine  - here more appropriately called "cityshine" - has just recently started being slung on corners in the inner city, with flavors like bubblegum, watermelon, peach and berry.

New taglines for it from a friend of mine who has been consuming this stuff include:
"From thug to the jug!" and "Stop the killin', start the stillin'!"

For $10 a half pint, you can get locally distilled corn whiskey rocket fuel of unknown content. Local entrepreneurs who used to set up grow houses for pot in the abundance of Baltimore's abandoned rowhomes are now setting up stills because, well, you can smell the growing marijuana from the street and but stills are less detectable by authorities. And closing down regulated liquor stores throughout the city will only help to increase this blackmarket.

So, Baltimore city, in the Free State of Maryland, is determined to make it more and more difficult for residents to buy legal alcohol while illegal production and distribution of cityshine is already setting itself up - production that will not be monitored for public safety, with sales and distribution that will not generate any sales tax revenue. 

City leaders are now beginning to recreate the same failed mistakes of our nation 100 years ago that, at the time, we were too smart to participate in.

Sounds like a New Prohibition Era to me.

If you live in the greater Hampden-area and want to save The Wine Underground, Roland Park Liquors or JTs, contact your city council representatives immediately and tell them to leave our liquor stores alone. If you live in other parts of the city, check the linked City Council directory below and contact your representative as well.

And while we're at it, let's start pushing for things we want. Like how about 4AM liquor licenses? Letting grocery stores carry beer and wine? And letting all liquor stores be open on Sunday. Hell, while we're at it, let's decriminalize marijuana too.

What the city is doing is regressive. We need to push our representatives to be progressive.

Mary Pat Clarke
Nick Mosby
Baltimore City Council Directory

******
Correction: In a previous version of this post, I misidentified the liquor store JTs as Hampden Parks. This post has been updated to fix that mistake.

Comments

[Nora]

Thanks Benn - it is completely silly to target these businesses and adversely affects neighbors in a whole other way, by removing a lit and populated area in an otherwise lonely mid-street or corner for walking. There are a lot of dog-walkers and runners (and yes, even children who can use a Safe Space to run to if someone comes a-creeping along their walk home) who appreciate the folks who are coming and going to these businesses. Although we could do without the inconsiderate corner-clogging parkers at the stop sign at Evans Chapel!

[dsmeek]

Well, to play Devil's Advocate, I suppose, what about the statistics from Hopkins that link alcohol and crime. What do we do with that? And what about the "food deserts", the term I'm hearing more and more? Yes, in poor neighborhoods you have a liquor store on every corner, but you can't get a banana or an apple. The little food shops are disappearing left and right, but you can get a bottle of vodka without walking two blocks in any direction. And what about those liquor stores that don't comply with the law now?

None of these questions were addressed at all in this blog. Seems to me that it's only responsible to address the concerns of the city/community, not just the concerns of the businesses, and come up with solutions.

As for the few suggestions you posted at the end, I know Fells Prospect neighborhood association has been pushing against the 3am liquor license proposal for months because not everyone in the neighborhood likes loud drunks standing within earshot of their homes all night. Otherwise, I see no reason not to have wine and beer in supermarkets, but that's also going to be a huge blow to locally owned shops, and we can't have it both ways. As for liquor stores being open on Sunday, I'll pray we get to that point; it's a silly Bible Belt law we don't need.

[Benn]

Scott - in response to your advocacy of the devil:

1. About the Hopkins study - yes. It's interesting and should spark a larger conversation about crime in the city. It's not surprising that alcohol and crime are linked, just like gambling and crime are linked (and we're seeing a push to expand gambling throughout the state). This is, in fact, the very seed of the original prohibition movement - because of crime being related to alcohol - we simply outlaw alcohol (in this case make it less available for those with no transportation) - and the result is - interestingly - MORE crime. (Which is what I'm pointing out by bringing up the new wave of cityshine.)

As someone who provided the city council with a large number of studies over the negative impact Wal-Marts have on a region, and to see them fall over themselves to try and bring the big box retailer into the city - I find it curious that the city is rapidly enacting based on the response of a Hopkins study.

In Hampden, 2 of the 3 stores they are targeting for shutdown contribute to these violent crime states - in that they are frequently the targets of violent crime. The Wine Underground and Hampden Parks both have been frequent targets of armed robbery. To shut them down because of it is to blame the victim. But if that is the approach we are going to take, then we should also be shutting down Bank of America and Pataspco Bank on 36th St. because they are frequently targets of armed robbery.

Can we then, following this logic, also propose that we should take away homes from people who are broken into because those houses contribute to crime as well?

2. Food desserts - yes. And this is where Nick Mosby's new legislation becomes problematic because in some neighborhoods, liquor stores also serve as food stores (albeit poor ones). By criminalizing a portion of that store's clientele - you are also saying to the business owner - your market for these goods has just been cleaved. So business owners must reconsider the best usage for their square footage and many may stop carrying any food whatsoever - making those deserts even drier.

3. You are conflating causality. Little food shops are not disappearing "left and right" because of liquor stores. Little food shops are disappearing as more and more grocery stores move into the city.

4. In terms of liquor stores who don't comply with the law - well, they're in non-compliance and should face whatever the sanctions are for non-compliance. Fines. Pulling of the license. Shutting down. This has been the problem with the hated Red Fish on Falls. They are frequently in non-compliance, and yet they still are open.

5. You say, as an advocate for the devil, "it's only responsible to address the concerns of the city/community". What about the business community? Don't they get a say? Or do they only get a say when it's a large, multi-million dollar development and large corporate businesses? Also, in this matter, it is ridiculous to assert that only the "community" (which I think you mean "residential community") and city should be having this conversation and not the people whose very livelihood is at stake. But part of my pointing this out is because in Hampden, The Wine Underground and Roland Park Liquors are very highly thought of in the residential community and residents should be aware of what is planned because most I talked to, if they heard of this, thought only the bullet proof glass wrap type of liquor stores were targeted - not well-respected boutique stores.

6. As for my suggestions - ah the Fells Point problem. People who move to Fells Point, and then complain about it being... Fells Point. I say that as a former Fells Point resident. But you're right. I should have suggested a 6AM last call. Then we can negotiate maybe down to a 3-4AM last call (like they have in grown-up cities) and call it a compromise.

But my larger point is, we need to force these kinds of conversations. It's part of a larger theory I have which is that progressives have, over the years, actually become conservatives (in that they're happy with maintaining the status quo - which is what conservativism means) and conservatives have become regressive activists. So if we are not pushing forward, there are well-organized forces who are pushing things backward - which is what Baltimore's New Prohibition Era is - a regressive response to an issue. If we are busy demanding loosening of alcohol regulations - I even advocate for a new boutique liquor license so that specialty shops can sell a small amount of booze-related goods (I'll admit I'd like to be able to sell 6-packs of Atomic Books Beer) - the forces of regression will be too busy fighting to maintain the status quo to start pushing policy back to the early 1900s. (And this applies politically across the board, not just in this instance).

[RA]

As to the food desert issue, Benn, it's an important issue that seems entirely unrelated. While I don't agree with the proposed legislation that minors shouldn't be allowed to set foot in a liquor store, I don't believe that continuing to let them in solves the food desert problem--unless those liquor stores are actually selling fresh produce. But the proposed legislation doesn't help, either, unless it mandates that every closed liquor store is replaced by an organic food market.

If you want to advocate for healthy food options in poor neighborhoods, please do. It's an important issue. But they're not going to magically appear either by putting other types of business owners out of business or by letting kids buy continue to buy the grape soda and bugles stacked up next to the Miller Light.

[Benn]

I agree. The food issue isn't entirely related. But I have been in some liquor stores in city neighborhoods that do sell a small amount of food. When I lived in Fells Point, my corner liquor store also carried eggs, milk, lunch meats, bread. But make no mistake, it was still a primarily a liquor store. But there were no other food options for blocks around.

As lousy as it was, even the Hampden Food Market (it's primary revenue was liquor sales, scratch offs and poker machines) sold food (before it became a good restaurant). I've been in many corner liquor stores that do sell things besides just chips and candy - like bananas, oranges, etc.

I'm not trying to advocate for food options here. That is a larger, far more complex conversation. I am simply pointing out that in some neighborhoods, corner liquor stores have grown to serve the community by selling food where no other options exist. And that Mosby's legislation, while I understand and appreciate the intent, is hostile to that and will result in those businesses reconsidering how much of their square footage they are dedicating to non-liquor sales.