The Charlottesville City Council received a petition Tuesday challenging its Nov. 2014 endorsement of a resolution to move the ABC store currently residing on West Main St. The Council decided to open up a public dialogue addressing the store’s location to hear community perspectives before a decision is made.
Tuesday’s petition comes after members of the local community banded together at the end of last year to implore City Council and the state government to move the ABC store from its current location on West Main once its lease ends on May 31, 2015.
Local business owners and neighborhood associations have cited the abnormally high levels of crime in the area surrounding the store as rationale for moving it away from the stretch of restaurants on West Main to a downtown location with better lighting and more security.
According to a press release from the Fifeville Neighborhood Association — the organization that spearheaded the original petition — there have been more than 1,500 criminal complaints on the blocks adjacent to the ABC store since 2011, with allegations ranging from drunk in public to trespassing.
The Charlottesville Police Department took 74 calls from the ABC store address in the past year. In the surrounding area, the CPD investigated 17 allegations of trespassing, 14 of shoplifting, 10 of suspicious circumstances, eight of disorderly conduct and five of public intoxication on adjacent blocks last year.
Though the Charlottesville City Council affirmed its support for moving the ABC store last year, the move was largely symbolic, as the state and not the city has jurisdiction over where ABC stores are located.
All the same, Vice-Mayor of Charlottesville Dede Smith said the Commonwealth was aware of Council input, and is likely to take community opinion into account when making a decision.
“What’s interesting about this issue is that we don’t have any legal jurisdiction,” Smith said. “It is not up to us, but the ABC store took the resolution more seriously than we thought it would, which would have altered how we would have approached the resolution.”
Since passing the resolution, however, the Council has become increasingly aware of both community support for and opposition to the store’s location.
Virginia ABC spokesperson Becky Gettings said in a press release the agency has been engaged in talks with the community and will weigh their opinions when deciding whether to renew the lease or change locations.
“Virginia ABC values the input from its neighbors in the West Main St. community and believes that the meetings held thus far to discuss public safety issues have been very beneficial,” Gettings said.
The West Main St. ABC store has worked to increase safety in the past, adding security cameras to the property and repackaging its airplane bottles to prevent littering.
Ken Scobie, president of the Locust Grove Neighborhood Association, is working to shape alternatives should a location change be approved.
“I suggested farther up the hill where a space has opened up that is almost the exact same size and shape as the current ABC store,” Scobie said. “I thought it would be a good compromise where we could give the neighborhood a ‘break,’ and it would not be too far away, but just around the corner.”
Council did not make any specific endorsements at its Tuesday meeting, but council members said they intend to continue discussion on the issue.
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