December 23-29, 2004

city beat

Cork and Battle

drunk drive: Parishioners of churches near this liquor store have rallied together in opposition. Photo By: Michael T. Regan

The fight over a North Philly liquor store will hit court next week.

by Doron Taussig

Two churches built of gray stone stand like medieval fortresses on opposite ends of the 3200 block of North Broad Street. A light stream of people dressed in their Sunday best flows toward each, their shoulders curled high against the cold. Along the way, they pass the Temple School of Dentistry and a Rite Aid. Then comes a Wine & Spirits Shoppe with the grate pulled down. The passersby do not acknowledge the shop. It is regarded as an intruder.

"We tried to fight it," says Shirley Robinson, upset as she hustles past the liquor store. Another woman with short hair stops to turn and issue a brief explanation.

"They think the church is a holy place," she says, "and they don't want the devil's liquid here."

Nevertheless, the liquid has been flowing since Aug. 30 when the state Liquor Control Board opened the shop. So, two days after Christmas, the congregations -- Greater Ebenezer Baptist Church, which has about 300 members, and Tioga United Methodist Church, which has about 150 -- will commence their next attempt to stem the flow: They are taking the LCB and the developer, Overbrook Investment Properties, to Commonwealth Court over what has become a tense and protracted controversy involving race, religion and neighborhood autonomy.

When the Rev. Jesse Brown of the National Association of African Americans for Positive Imagery first learned about the store, he joined with the two churches and other community members to form Wine No!, a campaign to have the store removed. Wine No! protested the opening of the store, but state law requires only that the LCB heed community complaints filed within the first 15 days after notice of a shop opening is posted. Wine No! did not object within that window.

Undaunted, Wine No! picketed the store several times and collected nearly 500 signatures requesting its removal on a scroll that they sent to the governor. In the lawsuit, Wine No! alleges that Overbrook failed to secure proper authorization to sell liquor.

The store is located in a district where alcohol sales are not permitted, and would-be purveyors must secure a variance from the city Zoning Board of Adjustment in order to sell. Whether they did so is a point of contention. Wine No! says that Overbrook failed to secure it. Overbrook, which is run by Jay Vederman, the son of senior Rendell advisor Herb Vederman, referred calls to its lawyer, Peter Kelsen, who said that his clients did. The Zoning Board says that a variance was granted on Oct. 2, 2002, but that it didn’t specify whether they could sell liquor.

But zoning nuances didn’t launch Wine No! Members say the liquor store -- it replaced a shop that had closed a couple blocks away -- is a detriment to the neighborhood. Tioga Methodist runs a day-care center, and Constance Long, the director, says, "I do not want the young people exposed to the element [the store] would draw." (There is a state law prohibiting liquor stores within 300 feet of elementary or secondary schools. Day care centers do not apply.)

The Rev. Franklin Bowers of Greater Ebenezer points out, "We have plenty of liquor stores in that area, and all the drugs you could possibly need." To add another purveyor, he believes, is a slap in the face. "I don't see much respect, really, for the churches."

Brown has long believed this perceived lack of respect to be a product of racial discrimination. Recently, he says, the LCB provided him with evidence.

While speaking to a reporter about Sunday liquor sales, LCB Chairman Jonathan Newman said,

"We have some stores in rural pockets where [Sunday sales] wouldn't work because of the religious, conservative beliefs. Sales would have to be at least $3,300 or it doesn't pay for us."

From there, Brown leaped into attack mode.

"In Pennsylvania, "rural' is often used as a code word for white," Brown said in a statement.

Were the North Philly community's objections ignored "because they were not "rural' enough to be heard by the governor and his appointees?" as Brown contends? LCB spokesman Bill Epstein says that Newman "was referring to a reason why sales would be low," rather than saying he would defer to a community's religious convictions. Epstein says that the two considerations in deciding whether to open a liquor store on Sundays will be access -- whether customers can go somewhere else relatively close by to get liquor instead -- and sales. Epstein says no determination has been made yet about whether the North Philly shop will operate on Sundays.

Brown doesn't buy it, saying the LCB's "concern is with what the community thinks about it. Religious belief is not a determining factor for sales, unless it's a Muslim community."

"The state is trying to run Philadelphia from Harrisburg," Brown says, and he doesn’t intend to stand by. "We think there are other pressures we can bring to bear" if the lawsuit fails, he says. "This is certainly not the end of it."