Liquor stores don’t have much of a shot

By Brendan Buhler

Monday, May 1, 2006 | 7:24 a.m.

Las Vegas might be the first great city of the 21st century, a glitzy megalopolis combining the sultry Strip, the latest in strip mall convenience and, someday soon - any day, you'll see - subdivisions turned into a real city, someplace with character under all its Spanish tile.

Amenities? We've got mega hardware stores nailed, ditto for dry cleaners, slot bars, sub shops and coffee stops. Even our convenience stores are convenient.

But when it comes to that 20th century icon of utility and grit, the neighborhood liquor store, Las Vegas looks more like Salt Lake City. Even Bakersfield has got us beat.

"Liquor stores are a lost art in Las Vegas," says UNLV wine and beer professor Adam Carmer. And he says the shortage of liquor stores and knowledgeable proprietors is coarsening our palate.

"Pretty soon all you have are your Stolis, your Absoluts, your Jagers - and that doesn't help anybody," he said.

Yes, we're hip enough to have a wine and beer professor who runs a bar called the Freakin' Frog, but not enough to have the liquor stores to do him proud. If, on a liquor-stores-per-person basis and going by the 2002 business census and the 2000 census, Manhattan had Clark County's population, it would have 237 liquor stores. Bakersfield's Kern County, the Hee-Haw buckle of California's Bible belt, would have 96.

By the government's last count, we had 45.

Forty five.

Salt Lake County, a place even near beer fears, would have 43.

Is the first great city of the 21st century, built whole on a blank desert out of limitless sheetrock, going to turn its back on this neighborhood institution? Is there no room for the immigrant's small business, the yellowed linoleum of the familiar, and the college student clerk who looks up from his Gilgamesh to point an Enkidu-stained finger at the bottle of rye he ordered for you?

Is the liquor store dead meat?

"It's like butchers. You try and find a little independent butcher in town," says Gene Moehring, chairman of the UNLV History Department. "There's a huge selection of meat at Vons. Why would you make another trip to go to the butcher's?"

It's true. Unlike New York's, our grocery stores sell liquor - there's an identical selection of name brands on the shelves of most of our 226 markets and supermarkets.

But so what? Same thing in Bakersfield or L.A., which has nearly four times as many stores per capita as we do and also sells all types of liquor in grocery stores.

So what is going on here?

One thing is our love of vice: Our friendly neighborhood tipple shop isn't a liquor store, but a slot bar. Los Angeles County may have four times as many liquor stores as Clark County, but we have nearly three times as many bars. And most of our bars have slot machines, which means more revenue per square foot.

"Even if you only have three or four people, as long as they're playing the blackjack on the bar machines, the bar will be a success," Moehring said.

That 24-hour gambling and the drinks that go with it means that no one worries about closing time or stocking up at home.

"You can drink for free," Carmer said. "So why pay for it?"

Another reason for our low numbers is that our local government, which opens its heart to bars and strip clubs, is less fond of the humble liquor store. Clark County Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates, for one, takes a rather dim view of liquor stores.

"Most people know us as Sin City. That's just a trademark," she said. "When you venture off the Strip, you're in neighborhoods and those types of establishments don't belong there."

Clark County, Henderson and North Las Vegas all have laws making it more difficult to open a neighborhood liquor joint. In Clark County, liquor stores have to be 1,500 feet from schools, churches and any other business with a liquor license. The rules in Henderson and North Las Vegas are similar.

When you add up the laws, the gambling bars and the grocery stores, Las Vegas is one of the toughest places to own a liquor store, says Hae Un Lee, president of the valley's largest chain of liquor stores, Lee's Discount Liquors.

"I work very hard, seven days a week," Lee said. "If a friend of mine asked me, I would not recommend he open a liquor store - very tough. If he wants to make more money for the same work, maybe a slot bar."

Lee has thrived in the business for 24 years, he says, because of regular customers and a large selection. Perhaps more important are that his nine stores and their large size enable him to buy in bulk and lower his prices to where he's competing with warehouse stores like Costco.

Smaller liquor stores can't match that advantage, says Tom Litherland, manager of Vegas Liquors on East Tropicana.

"People come in to buy a fifth of Hennessey, see what we charge and say they can get it for $24 at Sam's Club," Litherland said. "What can we say? We tell them to go to Sam's Club. We can't even buy it for that cheap."

Litherland said his store survives because of its customer service and by selling smaller bottles than grocers do. And Carmer, our beer and wine professor, believes it's still possible for a smart business to make it by specializing in fine spirits. But then again, maybe Las Vegans just aren't ready for liquor stores.

"Most of us are transplants that move here, and we don't care one way or another about the lack of a liquor store," said UNLV history prof Moehring. "I went right to the grocery store and bought my Seagram's 7 there. Didn't bother me one bit."