10 Cities Outlawed Sale of Alcohol at Gas Stations; 6 Would be Affected by Bill

When San Juan Capistrano officials passed an ordinance banning alcohol sales at gas stations, it was a symbolic act.

None of the gas stations in that city have mini-marts with beer or wine. Assistant City Manager Glenn Southard said officials wanted to send a signal to retailers not to even think about selling gasoline andbeer together.

But a bill before the state Legislature would remove the authority of San Juan Capistrano and every other city in California to pass laws banning simultaneous sales of gasoline and alcoholic beverages. Instead, it would require cities to consider individual applications for permits.

“Obviously, (the permit process) does not accomplish the same objective, which is to substantially reduce or eliminate the concurrent sales of gasoline and alcohol,” said Allan Roeder, city manager of Costa Mesa, which last year banned all new joint-sale outlets.

10 Cities Have Outlawed Sales

Ten cities in Orange County have outlawed sales of alcoholic beverages at gas station mini-marts. The bill, if passed, would affect six of those cities, which passed their laws after Aug. 1, 1985. They are Costa Mesa, Garden Grove, Laguna Beach, San Juan Capistrano, Los Alamitos and Huntington Beach.

Garden Grove and Los Alamitos both have been sued by an industry coalition called the Food and Fuel Retailers for Economic Equality because of those bans.

The four cities that banned the sales before Aug. 1, 1985, and would therefore not be affected by the bill, are Fountain Valley, Newport Beach, Orange and Seal Beach.

Anaheim officials voted in 1985 to continue allowing the sales, but with restrictions. Outside alcohol-related advertisement and video games, for example, are not allowed.

City officials in Westminster voted two years ago to allow the sales if the market has a retail area of at least 1,200 square feet, alcoholic beverages take up no more than 25% of the total display area, no alcoholic beverage sales are made at the gas station pumps or from drive-in windows, no signs advertising alcoholic beverages are displayed outside of the building and no video games are allowed.

Want Control

Costa Mesa Assistant City Atty. Eleanor M. Frey, who has appeared before hearings to express her opposition to the bill, said that the state should not be involved at all. “We want the control here,” Frey said.

Garden Grove City Atty. Eric Lauterer agreed. “Our position is that that should be determined locally and on a home-rule basis,” he said.

Last year, local government leaders managed to kill a bill that would have removed any power of cities and counties to regulate the joint sales of alcohol and gasoline.

The compromise, Frey said, is better than the previous bill but, “We would rather have no bill.”

In Los Alamitos, City Atty. Thomas Allen said, “We are not happy with that (latest) legislation. But if that’s the best they can do, we have to live with it.”