Foes of Alcohol Regulation Cutbacks Urge New Fees : Liquor control: Opponents at legislative hearing say agency staff reductions will result in more crime and hurt downtown revitalization efforts.

At the Blue Bird Market on Los Angeles’ downtown Skid Row, customers in grimy clothes enter a caged alcove, push money at the cashier through wrought-iron bars and call out the name of the fortified wine of their choice.

With their bottles of Cisco or Thunderbird in hand, the customers face danger as they leave. During a 30-month period, 71 thefts and robberies occurred at the cheerless market on South Main Street, and in many cases it was the customers who were victims.

David Robbins, chief of the Los Angeles-Metropolitan office of the state Department of Alcohol Beverage Control, is trying to put the Blue Bird out of business as a “disorderly house” because of the crime that it seems to attract. The recommendation that the Blue Bird’s license to operate be revoked is pending before an administrative law judge.

After Friday, when a 23% cut in the ABC’s budget is to take effect, such enforcement efforts will no longer be possible. “These places will be rampant,” Robbins said.

With such a scenario in mind, a parade of homeowners, business leaders and community activists came Wednesday to a legislative hearing at the Weingart Center on Skid Row to tell state Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) that they are adamantly opposed to the looming budget cuts. In fact, said several, the department’s budget should be increased by raising the fines or fees levied on liquor outlets.

Gov. Pete Wilson has stuck by the budget cuts, despite opposition from police and community members at several public hearings around the state and despite the contention that the ABC actually makes money for the state by imposing fees and fines on alcohol sellers.

Katz urged those who attended the hearing to keep pressuring the governor to back off and warned that this New Year’s Eve could be bloody if the cuts go through. “I think unfortunately we will have some grim statistics to take to him in January if he goes ahead with this,” Katz said.

The $4.9-million cut in the agency’s funds, part of sweeping cuts to balance the budget last summer, will require slashing the agency’s current statewide staff of 197 investigators to 55, ABC Deputy Director Jerry R. Jolly testified.

The reductions will leave Robbins’ downtown Los Angeles office, which now has 13 investigators to monitor 3,500 licensees, with only two staffers. That office has shut down 15 downtown bars and liquor stores in recent years and has eight revocation actions pending, including the one against the Blue Bird.

The ABC investigates outlets for violations such as selling alcohol to minors or to obviously intoxicated people, operating after hours or maintaining a “disorderly house’--a liquor outlet that attracts a pattern of criminal activity.

Estella Lopez, head of Miracle on Broadway, a downtown merchants group, told Katz the reductions will impede efforts to revitalize Broadway as a respectable shopping district.

“When I invite investors and bankers to look at downtown, to come and help us redevelop this area--what we have to step over, what we have to face is this human tragedy” of public drunkenness, Lopez said. “It affects our ability to do business. Good stores close or they don’t open.”

Angela Goldberg, who chairs the Los Angeles County Alcohol Policy Coalition, said: “We can’t afford to let the governor use the community’s health in a game with the state unions or the Legislature. The ABC, as it is, has their hands tied and is not doing enough. It’s time to increase the fees and expand the department.”