Valleys Left High, Dry by Alcohol Board Cuts : Law enforcement: Layoffs will leave just two ABC investigators to regulate liquor sales in the sprawling Van Nuys district.

Staff cutbacks in the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, which will leave only two investigators to cover the San Fernando, Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys, could devastate efforts to curtail illegal liquor sales and related crime, according to community activists and police.

Nearly three-quarters of the state’s ABC investigators will face layoffs under Gov. Pete Wilson’s budget-cutting plan. In the ABC’s Van Nuys district, which covers the three valleys, the toll is expected to be a reduction from 10 investigators to two, officials said.

“As far as I can see, there will be no enforcement,” said Carl Falletta, assistant director of ABC’s southern division, which includes the Van Nuys district. “The whole process will grind to a halt.”

That pronouncement sent shock waves through the community of activists and police who work to remedy alcohol-related problems in the area.

“We’re stunned,” said Augie Maldonado, a member of the Pacoima Coordinating Council.

Maldonado is director of the group’s Alcohol Availability Project, which works with the ABC and other agencies to establish controls on the sale of alcohol to minors and intoxicated customers at stores and bars in the area.

Maldonado’s group and other community organizations have defeated numerous attempts to open new liquor establishments in Pacoima. They have also forged cooperation with existing establishments, which have agreed to shorten selling hours and to stop selling single cans or small bottles of alcohol, and have made other concessions.

“I think it is going to be devastating,” Maldonado said of the ABC cuts. “Any time you reduce that many people from an already small group, it is going to hurt. It is going to make it harder for us.”

The proposed layoffs, designed to save the state an estimated $5 million in salaries, are expected to take effect beginning in November.

ABC investigators have two main focuses. They conduct background checks on businesses applying for liquor licenses and are also charged with enforcing state laws governing the sale of alcohol by existing license holders. The Van Nuys district routinely has 150 license application investigations in process at a time, and there are nearly 4,000 existing licenses in the district.

ABC officials said the proposed cuts will leave the already beleaguered Van Nuys staff with little time to conduct thorough background investigations on new applications and no time at all for enforcement of regulations.

“Enforcement will probably be left with local police,” said Walter Jarman, a supervisor in the Van Nuys district. “We won’t have the manpower to do any enforcement.”

But Los Angeles police officials said it is unlikely that they will be able to pick up the slack.

“We are thin to begin with,” said Capt. Valentino Paniccia, commander of the Los Angeles Police Department’s West Valley Division. “We can’t pick up any more enforcement. Any cutback in ABC enforcement won’t be picked up.”

Paniccia said the ABC staff reduction will likely leave the remaining investigators office-bound because of the backlog of license applications that will build.

“We won’t ever see them in the field,” Paniccia said. “Their work is going to be so curtailed they will only be paper shufflers.”

Sgt. Bob Freet of the Van Nuys Division vice squad said police already handle most enforcement tactics, such as sting operations that target stores that sell alcohol to minors. But the cases are then handed off to ABC officers, who are responsible for prosecuting businesses that violate alcohol laws.

Through administrative hearings, the ABC can seek suspension or forfeiture of offending businesses’ alcohol licenses. Already that process takes months, officials concede. With the proposed cuts, it may take even longer.

“We count on ABC a great deal to follow up on the prosecution,” Freet said. “Our efforts aren’t going to stop, but the follow-up that needs to be done to haul the violators into court is going to grind to an absolute halt.”

The bottom line, some said, is that the eventual effect of the staff cuts will be that holders of liquor licenses will no longer feel compelled to abide by state regulations.

“The liquor business is going to be an unregulated business,” said Robin Little, chairwoman of the San Fernando Valley Alcohol Policy Coalition. “The word will be out to people in business that there won’t be any penalties, in terms of getting caught selling to minors or intoxicated persons.”

Ray Chavira, chairman of the High Desert Alcohol Policy Coalition in the Antelope Valley, agreed. He predicted the victims will be minors, who will find alcohol--a major killer of young people--more available.

“Nobody will be minding the store,” Chavira said. ABC’s “functions of regulation and enforcement will be thrown out the window. This is unconscionable. If we really care for kids, this is the biggest hypocrisy to come along in a long time.”

Ted Goldstein, spokesman for City Atty. James K. Hahn, called the proposed cutback ill-advised. He and others called improper sale of alcohol a “gateway” problem, because it leads to other problems and crimes, such as drug abuse, assaults and, most of all, drunk driving--which accounts for 25% of the city attorney’s office caseload.

“This is going to affect the ability to close down or curtail illegal activities in the community,” Goldstein said. “If there is no agency out there monitoring these regulations, what is the use of having them?

“We really see this as a gross decision to cut back on a vital law enforcement agency. If anything, the state should be increasing funding for ABC.”

Goldstein will join Little, Chavira and other community activists at a news conference Monday at the ABC office in Van Nuys to protest the proposed staff cuts.

But not everyone involved in seeking tighter controls on alcohol sales in the Valley forecast gloom and doom.

Even with 10 investigators, the ABC staff has been spread so thin in recent years that community groups are already finding other ways to address concerns about alcohol problems and the proliferation of liquor outlets, said Fred Taylor, president of Focus 90’s.

Focus 90’s is a consortium of homeowner and business groups from the northeast Valley that has worked closely with the Pacoima Coordinating Council in efforts to head off applications for new alcohol licenses by businesses in Pacoima.

Taylor said the community groups have learned that they are more successful in stopping establishments from starting to sell alcohol when they oppose conditional-use permits that the business operators must receive from the city. He said this route has been taken more and more frequently because ABC officials have not acted quickly or not acted at all.

“We have skirted ABC as a rule, because they have always had the excuse about no manpower,” Taylor said. “We can deal with the problem much better on the city level. The ABC hasn’t helped us, to be candid. We wouldn’t miss them if they went out of business tomorrow.”

Taylor may be in the minority. Others who fight alcohol-related problems in the community with him said it would be a grievous mistake to let the ABC staff cuts go by without a fight.

Maldonado of the Pacoima Coordinating Council said it is true the group has relied more on other methods of dealing with the problem, but he said the ABC is still a vital part of the attack.

“The conditional-use process is going to take on more importance,” he said. “But what are you going to do with all the liquor licenses already out there? There has to be an agency that can regulate them.”

And he said, two ABC officers for the whole Van Nuys district will not be enough.