Anaheim Official Says Hot Food Plus Cold Beer Equals Trouble : Mini-Marts on Griddle Over Burger Sales
After dropping off a stack of magazines at a gasoline station mini-mart in Anaheim about lunchtime Tuesday, Kevin Brandt picked up two hot dogs and a 32-ounce cherry cola to go.
For Brandt, a deliveryman for Drown News Agency, the am/pm mini-mart--which also began selling hot hamburgers last week--is “highly convenient.”
But an hour earlier in Anaheim City Council chambers, Councilman E. Llewellyn Overholt Jr. called the new burger-to-go sales at such markets “extremely, extremely dangerous” because, he said, such food sales could encourage customers to drink and drive. Four am/pm mini-marts now operate at Arco stations in Anaheim.
Overholt reasoned that customers stopping to pick up hot food may buy cold beer or wine. And if the food is hot, the customer will want to eat it on the way home--before it gets cold. To wash down the food, the driver may drink a “frosty beer,” Overholt said.
The issue of alcohol sales at service stations has been a controversial one for many cities, including Anaheim, where the council last year voted 3 to 2 to allow the sale of alcohol at gas station mini-marts. But the city imposed controls on the mini-marts, including a ban on any alcohol advertising outside the buildings.
Overholt, one of the three to vote in favor of alcohol sales, said he felt Arco “misled” the council.
Overholt asked City Atty. Jack L. White to review whether the sale of hot food is permitted in gasoline station convenience stores. If the mini-marts are in compliance with their conditional use permits, Overholt said he will “start a campaign” to reverse the city’s decision to allow the alcoholic beverage sales.
Don A. Davis, am/pm franchise manager, said that hamburger sales in the four Anaheim outlets just began but that the stores have been selling hot dogs and other hot sandwiches since last year. Of about 60 Arco service stations in Orange County, 33 have am/pm stores, he said.
Davis said Arco has complied with the various restrictions set by different cities in the past year. He discounts the concept that hot-food sales will lead to greater alcohol consumption while driving.
“I don’t know of any study that says sales of hot dogs and hamburgers and gasoline contribute to drunk driving,” Davis said.
At the Arco am/pm on the corner of Gilbert Street and Lincoln Avenue in Anaheim, several lunchtime customers helping themselves to the foil-wrapped burgers said the new service is a convenience.
“There are days when I can’t sit down at a McDonald’s,” said Brandt, 28, the delivery driver. As for alcohol sales, Brandt said, “if people are going to drink and drive, they’re going to do it no matter where.”
Marty Parks, 18, agreed on both points. If it comes down to a choice between hamburgers and booze, Parks said the mini-marts should stick to the food. Stressing a point emphasized by officials from Arco, Thrifty Oil Co. and other oil companies, Parks said, “If they’re going to drink and drive, they’re going to drink and drive. They can go to a supermarket, liquor store or anywhere else.”
In a related matter, Thrifty Oil Co. and Food and Fuel Retailers for Economic Equality will square off against the City of Costa Mesa today in Orange County Superior Court, seeking to change restrictions of a city ordinance.
In the ordinance approved in January, existing service station mini-marts in Costa Mesa can continue to sell beer and wine but cannot sell it cold or advertise it, City Atty. Tom Wood said. New mini-marts are banned from selling alcoholic beverages altogether.
