New stores selling liquor for consumption off-site banned in Spokane near parks, schools, libraries and more

Opening a new shop selling alcohol for off-premise consumption is now banned in Spokane within 500 feet of parks, schools, libraries, transit centers and community centers, effective immediately.

This would effectively apply to new liquor and convenience stores, and does not apply to new grocery stores, hotels, pharmacies, supermarkets or taverns.

The Spokane City Council voted unanimously to adopt the change Monday, arguing it would limit the harmful impacts on neighborhoods and vulnerable communities from easy access to alcohol. The interim ordinance will be in effect for a year, but could be made permanent and extended to protect sensitive locations, such as addiction treatment centers.

One of the law’s sponsors, Councilman Paul Dillon, was inspired by concerns about the rumored opening of a liquor store near Compassionate Addiction Treatment while that service provider was still located downtown near the troubled intersection of Second and Division. He had pitched the change for more than a year before it came to fruition Monday.

“It was just the predatory optics of them locating next to a treatment and recovery center, and also a place that was seeing an increase in alcohol-related crimes,” Dillon said.

The original proposal stalled, and the ordinance approved Monday did not include recovery centers, as there continue to be “more questions around where those are located in the city,” Dillon said. A full and regularly updated list would be necessary in order to enforce the ordinance ahead of applications for new businesses.

The ordinance still finally came forward for two reasons, Dillon said.

“There’s been multiple pending applications throughout the city that have really kinda raised an eyebrow, because they seemed to be located in low-income neighborhoods,” Dillon said. “There’s a lot of research (that these shops are) corollary to underage drinking, preying on communities of color and poor health outcomes.”

Adopting this ordinance also demonstrates to the state Liquor Control Board that the city is working to limit the harms of off-premise alcohol consumption in order to convince that board to approve the “Alcohol Impact Area” that the city instituted earlier this year.

In February, Spokane began asking downtown convenience stores to voluntarily remove single-serving alcoholic beverages from their stores and stop selling any alcohol after midnight, citing chronic littering, accompanying drug use and violent crime in the area. State law requires that this initial “Alcohol Impact Area” be voluntary for at least six months, at which point the Liquor Control Board could allow the city to make the new rules mandatory and legally enforceable.

State code also suggests that cities demonstrate other efforts to curb problems related to off-premise alcohol consumption ahead of that approval by the Liquor Control Board.