Beer and wine at the corner pharmacy? Maybe, but not yet

By Joe Schoenmann

Sunday, June 6, 2010 | 2 a.m.

Death, taxes and — if Walgreens has its way — joining the list of unavoidables: beer and wine in every pharmacy in Clark County.

Whoo-hoo! Convenient alcohol. When is it coming?

The company is applying for liquor licenses to sell beer and wine in its 27 stores within Clark County’s jurisdiction. (Walgreens also has stores in Las Vegas, North Las Vegas and Henderson.) It’s part of a company plan to obtain licenses for about 5,000 locations across the country by year’s end.

Walgreens still faces a hurdle, after the Clark County Commission postponed a vote Tuesday to license two stores. Both are within 1,500 feet of schools, which violates a county ordinance that can only be skirted with say-so from the commission. One is at 7685 S. Rainbow Boulevard, 585 feet from Steele Elementary School. The other store is on Durango Drive, 1,372 feet from Merryhill Elementary.

A vote on both was postponed until neighbors could be mailed notices and, in the case of the Rainbow store, a meeting is held with nearby residents.

Don’t alcohol sales occur within 1,500 feet of those schools?

Indeed. What appears to bolster Walgreens’ case is the fact that there are nine businesses with liquor licenses within the 1,500-foot boundary around Steele Elementary. Likewise, there are four liquor-licensed businesses within 1,500 feet of Merryhill Elementary.

Last week, though, Commissioner Steve Sisolak turned that argument on its head, asking “how many liquor licenses in an area is just too much?” (National studies indicate a higher level of illegal and nuisance activity in areas with a higher density of alcohol outlets.)

During the meeting, commissioners heard that county staff had administratively approved 25 other Walgreens stores for liquor licenses.

Without question?

Well, now questions are being asked. Some of those stores, Commissioner Tom Collins said, might have originally been approved on the condition they not sell alcohol.

County staff was directed to examine the histories of those stores to make sure no such conditions were imposed when they were originally approved.

“So we need some research done to see if that condition exists and to see where we go from here,” Collins said.

Why is Walgreens making this push?

Robert Elfinger, a Walgreens spokesman, said the company stopped selling beer and wine in its stores in the 1990s. That was due, in part, to the “cumbersome” tracking of regulations governing alcohol sales in municipalities across the country. Technology has made that easier, Elfinger said, enabling store registers to be programmed to lock out such sales when liquor sales aren’t allowed.

The move to sell alcohol now is simply a reaction “to customer demand,” he said, adding that the products will take up about 2 percent of store space and add up to about 5 percent of sales.

•••

A county commissioner has unveiled a new iPhone app to attack graffiti, trash and other neighborhood problems.

Since when can a phone do anything to get rid of the unsightly graffiti in Clark County?

It’s because the iPhone also works as a camera. Commissioner Lawrence Weekly has announced what’s being called the “myDistrictD” iPhone application, which can be downloaded from the iPhone Application Store by searching for keyword “myDistrictD.”

When the program is installed, users can take a picture of an offense, then tap “submit.” This will send the photo and location of the offense to Weekly’s office, which will route it to the necessary department.

Where did this application come from?

American Graffiti, which is contracted by the county to combat graffiti on and around the Las Vegas Strip, gave it to the county free of charge. The company uses a similar application to monitor graffiti cleaning efforts.