Baltimore liquor stores unlikely to get city recovery help
BALTIMORE — Dozens of Baltimore liquor stores damaged in rioting over the death of Freddie Gray are likely to be excluded from city recovery help, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Gray said on Monday.
Long-standing concerns about zoning and community complaints about liquor stores in poor neighborhoods mean they could be barred from loans and other financial aid, she said.
Many of the stores do not meet zoning laws and Baltimore needs alternatives, such as grocery stores to improve impoverished neighborhoods, Rawlings-Blake said.
“I do not believe it is appropriate for the city to provide money for these non-conforming liquor stores to rebuild as liquor stores in these locations,” she told a news conference in the Park Heights neighborhood, which city officials say has the highest concentration of liquor stores in Maryland.
Nearly 400 businesses across Baltimore, about 40 of them liquor stores, were damaged or destroyed in rioting after the April 27 funeral of Gray, a 25-year-old black man. He died of spinal cord injuries allegedly suffered while in police custody.
About two dozen liquor outlets are thought to be in residential communities for which they are not properly zoned.
Dr. Leana Wen, Baltimore’s health commissioner, said the African-American majority city of 620,000 people had twice the per-capita number of liquor stores for other cities of the same size.
Liquor stores in Park Heights, a largely black area near the neighborhood where Gray lived and died, have long drawn criticism from neighborhood activists who say they are a haven for drug dealing and other illegal activity.
There is a one-block stretch that has at least four liquor stores.
A large number of businesses damaged in the April unrest were owned by Korean-Americans, who operate many family-run stores and liquor outlets.
The Korean-American Grocers and Licensed Beverage Association of Maryland and the Maryland State Licensed Beverage Association did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
