Liquor stores create a flap in Eagan

Should a city cap the number of off-sale liquor licenses it issues -- especially if that city has more liquor stores per capita than others in the metro area?

And should a city require that liquor stores must keep a certain distance from a school, church or day-care center?

At a fiery Eagan City Council meeting this week, those questions were front and center, but in the end the city opted not to change its liquor-store policies.

Mayor Mike Maguire, insisting that Eagan "is not a city of drunkards," said the free market would determine how many liquor stores are viable, and he scolded a group of liquor store owners for circulating what he called misinformation about the city's intention to change its rules about liquor stores' separation from "protected-use" properties.

He called the local flap over the number of liquor stores, and the regulations governing them, "an oddly confused hornet's nest" in which two separate matters had been incorrectly linked.

Those issues were the distance that an off-sale liquor store must be from schools, churches and day-care centers; and separately, Cub Foods' notification to a city clerk that it might open a liquor store in a strip mall south of its store at Diffley Road and Lexington Avenue. Some had incorrectly surmised that the city had planned to change its rules about liquor store locations to accommodate the new store, but the city says Cub's plan would already meet the requirements.

Some liquor store owners apologized at Tuesday's meeting for fueling the confusion, yet they said concerns remained over whether the city would issue an 18th off-sale liquor license in what they called a saturated market.

The owners had circulated petitions and e-mails to customers after getting wind that Cub plans to open a liquor store, which would be located across from an elementary school. Cub officials declined to comment on any expansion plans.

In recent weeks, the liquor store owners have banded together, fearing a new low-priced liquor store could force some of them out of business.

Off-sale liquor license limits are set at the discretion of each city, said Don Reeder of the League of Minnesota Cities. Some metro cities limit the number they'll issue; others, such as Eagan, do not. Liquor store setback requirements are the same way.

No change in setback rules

The liquor store owners said they feared that, in a sense, history was repeating itself. They pointed to the city's failure to notify them in 2007 about the removal of setback requirements for stores selling 3.2 beer. That change was approved just before the same Cub store applied for and received a license to sell 3.2 beer.

No real changes to setback

Maguire and council members said they hadn't planned specific changes for setback requirements for liquor stores, though they had it on the agenda to review an antiquated law. The City Council tweaked that ordinance Tuesday evening but made no significant changes.

After debating the role of government in a free market, the City Council decided not to change the 200-foot setback requirements for liquor stores.

Maguire also lambasted a liquor store owner for suggesting that Cub's two $1,000 donations to the city's police and fire departments in November could be a conflict of interest.

"I think at the very least it is a reckless suggestion that these donations could or would have been given to the city in hopes of currying some favoritism," the mayor said.