The Liquor Store Story: Difficulties Young Students can Face
How can young people be influenced by the liquor stores around their neighborhood/area?
So here is a personal question for everyone, when driving, walking, ect. , how many liquor stores do you see daily? Around 2, 3, 4? Well here is a similar question, how many liquor stores do you see that are near or around schools? Now that is a different question that I am here to answer.
The Problem that I see
A problem I'm seeing that could be a threat is that there are liquor stores that are near schools which can have both a positive or negative influence. But someone could be saying right now, " The legal drinking and buying age is 21 , what's the problem with that if they are under-aged?" Well that is a good point, BUT there are some tactics that these students could be used.
Negatives
A negative thing that could happen is that students might begin to party at a young age. For example, some could party at a very young age, as young as high school or middle school students. In addition, maybe the parents buy the necessaries for the party and they could get a drink or two from the nearby liquor store. This could be bad because of the influence from the parent's students. But, something that is wrong with this is that although liquor stores have alcoholic beverages, it's just like a normal store but a bit smaller. Luckily, the cashier could stop you and get your identification and stop you from purchasing. The cashier could also stop someone from purchasing the beverages if they is a minor present.
In addition here are the maps of how many liquor stores are around my area (South Central) and Boyle Heights
Liquor LA County Map (The Orange Dots with a jug and bottle represent the Liquor Stores around LA county)
Middle and High Schools (The Yellow Circles represent the High Schools while the Green Diamonds represent the Middle Schools in all of LA County)
Map 3 - A map of both the LA Liquor Store and Middle and High School maps combined (The Orange Dots with a jug and bottle represent the Liquor Stores around LA county) [The Yellow Circles represent the High Schools while the Green Diamonds represent the Middle Schools in all of LA County] {Side Note: You might have to zoom in a bit in order to see the locations of the liquor stores, zooming out will make the liquor store icon will disappear}
(How many Liquor Stores are around Boyle Heights [there is one around Hollenbeck and Roosevelt])
(How many Liquor Stores are near my area of South Central)
1st Image: A Liquor Store that is near Dr. Julian Nava (a Middle School that is located in South Central), 2nd Image: A Liquor Store that is around both Hollenbeck and Roosevelt
In addition to these photos I have taken, I've also have a video I would like to demonstrate:
Zoning Laws
What this means is that how far liquor stores need to be near a school. There are some zoning laws on what building can be how near/far on what building. In this case, we are talking about the zoning laws of liquor stores and schools. For California, on how close liquor stores have to be near a school is in the vicinity of at least 600 ft. or 200 yards. If you want to learn more about how far a liquor store should be nears schools and other buildings check out this article from ArcGIS.
How Young People get Influenced
As stated before, if you remove the thought that liquor stores don't only sell alcoholic beverages, then it's just considered a normal market place but a lot smaller than usual. So this should really be a big problem to the students because there are many ways the cashiers stop their attempt into buying an alcoholic beverage. And, some students might not be interested into buying those types of drinks because the only reason they might be in a liquor store because it's close to their home and they probably just wanted some chips or a beverage. But, I'm not saying that this isn't a small problem because of the many influences that could cause the problem. That's why I have a solution.
What to take from this + My Solution(s)
So what is it to take from this? We shouldn't really put liquor stores near schools and they should be more geared around the neighborhood instead of somewhere close to their education. But there might be some people where they buy all their stuff from liquor stores, so what should be the solution? Well I have several different solutions to this problem I see going on. There should be a Student Store or start a student store that is somewhere in the schools (like the one that we have here in Hollenbeck) where you can buy snacks and beverages like water and juice. In addition, there should be more small markets or 99-cents/Dolor stores because then that means there could be more possibilities of buying snack or importance than buying some beverages meant for some adults. If this does indeed work, then there should be more little markets and a bit less liquor stores. Thank you for listening to this problem and I hope this can be fixed sooner or later.
What a school has created, a Student Store for the children so they can buy snacks, school supplies, ect.
