December 23, 2004
Interesting facts about alcohol, Palo Alto, East Palo Alto, and Stanford
MercuryNews.com | 12/23/2004 | Liquor sales raise residents' alarm
East Palo Alto actually has relatively few stores that sell alcohol to carry away, according to a Mercury News analysis. Tony burgs like Los Altos, Portola Valley and neighboring Palo Alto all have far more liquor stores per person.Of 34 cities in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, only four have fewer stores per capita than East Palo Alto.
Some residents say the issue is one of density, because East Palo Alto is only 2.5 square miles; the city is among the top 10 in liquor stores per square mile in the two counties.
And residents are concerned about the perception as much as the numbers. They worry about documented links to alcohol sales and crime. They don't like the idea of selling booze close to churches, which abound in the little city.
And they don't like the specter of their town's old reputation for bars and booze, which the community has worked hard to leave behind.
Palo Alto was founded as a dry town in the late 1800s to appease the Stanford family, who wanted students to be educated without easy access to liquor.
But in the era before and after World War II, merchants in the Whiskey Gulch area of what is now East Palo Alto prospered from their teetotaler neighbors, including Stanford University students, said William Webster, an East Palo Alto resident and unofficial city historian.
In the process, Whiskey Gulch also developed a reputation for blight and crime, as outsiders came to behave in ways they would never behave in their hometowns of Mountain View or Menlo Park, Webster said. The racial subtext, of white outsiders coming to misbehave amid what was a mostly black community until the 1990s, rankled many residents.
I never knew that.
Posted by TY at December 23, 2004 6:30 AM
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