Put bars and churches on every other corner

Two Riverbend restaurants approved for liquor sales, but Central City bar can't reopen

In Central City where the preachers run everything,

Bean Brothers Lounge, however, did not fare so well. A decades-old establishment and occasional stop on Central City second-line parades, the lounge has been closed for long enough that it lost its conditional use to operate and could not reopen without the city’s permission

At the January planning meeting, Michael Robinson of the Jericho Road development said he didn’t strictly oppose the lounge, but that his neighborhood had not been approached by the owner.
“Even though historically there has been a lot of bars in the area, it’s something we’d like to get out of,” Robinson said. “In general, we are in favor of the moratorium, and this is in support of that.”

City Councilwoman Stacy Head, who represents the area, described her reasons Thursday for opposing its reopening, starting with “intense opposition from community members and leaders.” A church is 110 feet away, and the bar is actually built across property lines so that four structures would receive commercial zoning in a residential neighborhood if it were approved, she said before leading the council’s “nay” vote.

Can we at least agree that this has got to be the most irrelevant criterion for denying a liquor license imaginable? Tomorrow I will go down to St. Louis Cathedral with a tape measure and see if I can get 110 feet away without striking booze in any direction.