Ninilchik General Store wants to add on a package liquor store and their attorney has proposed a change in Kenai Peninsula Borough code to make it happen. Current code says liquor stores cannot be with in 500 feet of schools and churches.
Late last year, Anchorage Attorney, Dan Coffey, offered a proposed amendment to borough code that would have changed the setback for schools and churches from 500 feet to 300 feet, allowing the liquor store to proceed. The Kenai Peninsula School Board wrote a letter to the Borough Assembly, objecting to the change.
At Monday night’s Kenai Peninsula School Board meeting Coffey presented a new proposal that only applies to churches. Coffey made a trip down to Soldotna to testify in person before the School Board about the proposed change.
“Their concern was over the 500 feet. So we wrote the proposed amendment. And that says that for schools and playgrounds, which I assume are part of schools, that the 500 feet measured the way it’s currently measured, would not be amended at all period – it would stay exactly the same but for churches it would be changed from 500 feet to 300 feet. And that’s all it does,” said Coffey.
If the borough approves the code change it could allow the store to move ahead with selling alcohol.
Even though Ninilchik School is within the 500-foot setback, the principal already sent a letter of non-objection. The store-owner says he also has a letter of non-objection from one nearby church. However, a church across the street is objecting.
One Ninilchik resident, Debbie Cary, testified that she was concerned the proposed liquor store would be too close to her children’s school.
“We need to do what’s right for the kids. We need to look into the future. We need to make sure that what we do here today is going to carry us through the next 15 to 25 years,” said Cary.
Cary is also an owner of an existing bar and package liquor store in Ninilchik.
School Board President, Joe Arness says he will write a letter to the Borough Assembly clarifying that the School Board does not want the 500-foot separation to change for schools.
“I will be writing a letter to the Assembly which expresses our concern that the 500 foot separation between liquor licenses and schools remains as the borough currently has it and that what they choose to do with amending the distance between churches and liquor establishments is up to them,” said Arness.
The amended proposal will go before the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly and a public hearing will be held at their regular meeting on February 2nd.
