The Battle for Liquor Licenses in Highland Park

Assistant Editor

Highland Park: It didn't quite seem fair to Mando Medina when he first started thinking about liquor sales in his neighborhood.

"Back in the day, nobody in Highland Park could get a liquor license," he said.

But when the neighborhood began to gentrify, new restaurants appeared to get them right away. At least that's what Medina began to notice around 2018.

Since then, the anti-gentrification activist has been trying to stop new liquor licenses from being issued in the neighborhood - whether it's a bar serving hard liquor or beer and wine at a restaurant.

• "How many places sell and serve booze in Highland Park?"

The 53-year-old lifelong resident of Highland Park shows up to neighborhood council meetings and tries to get the attention of the California Department of Alcohol Beverage Control, which issues alcohol licenses.

In March, Medina, in polite and direct terms, warned a business owner seeking a liquor license for a proposed Korean restaurant on York Boulevard of potential community resistance.

"You literally entered a war zone against liquor licenses," Medina said during the March meeting of the neighborhood council's Planning & Land Use Committee. "The community of Highland Park will fight you at every step."

Several years earlier, Medina helped slow the process for the now defunct Sunset Beer Company when the tap room and bottle shop attempted to open a storefront on York Boulevard in 2018. As a result, the company scrapped its plans.

"It's hard fighting the liquor license because most get approved by the City, and our Councilmembers - old and new - support these requests," Medina said. "We have, though, slowed down the process of getting them."

But can a new, sit-down restaurant even survive in the current market without serving at least beer and wine?

"Having alcohol to serve is probably the only way to make ends meet," said Highland Park Neighborhood Councilmember Harry Blumsack, at a recent public hearing for a beer-and-wine permit.

But Medina notes that some eateries do survive just fine without beer or wine.

Medina now faces the city's new Restaurant Beverage Program, which allows qualifying restaurants to serve alcohol without obtaining a conditional use permit. This change may circumvent the public hearings where objections are often voiced.

"It's almost impossible to fight the city because they’ve already got their agenda," Medina said. "Our goal is to make sure ABC looks at their own rules, and make them see it's over-saturated."

We will report the results in an upcoming issues of the Daily Digest newsletter

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Assistant Editor

Barry Lank has worked for newspapers on the East and West Coasts, and earned an MS in journalism from Columbia University. He formerly produced "National Lampoon Presents: The Final Edition." A native of San Gabriel Valley, he now lives in East Hollywood.

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