With its plans to repurpose a vacated supermarket in Bethel as a liquor store, the Bethel Native Corp. has given new life to an emotional debate about alcohol sales in the Western Alaska hub city.
The corporation's new wholly owned subsidiary, Bethel Spirits LLC, is in the process of applying to the state for a package store liquor license, corporation president and CEO Ana Hoffman said in an email Thursday. Bethel Spirits plans to submit an application in April to the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board.
That Bethel could see its first liquor store in decades raises questions about whether legal sales would worsen already pervasive problems with alcohol abuse in the city and dozens of surrounding communities. If the answer is yes, would the increase in city revenues and benefits to corporation shareholders outweigh social and medical costs?
The corporation will face opposition from many in the Yukon-Kuskokwim region, said Myron Naneng, president of the Association of Village Council Presidents. He plans to team with tribes in the region and reach out to the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corp. to oppose approval of the license.
Alcohol has been the cause of many broken families, injuries and deaths, and the reintroduction of sales in Bethel will make those problems even more common, he said. To Naneng, the jobs and extra revenue are not worth the tradeoffs.
Does money bring back people who have had an accident? Naneng said.
Dan Winkelman, president and CEO of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corp., said Thursday that he, like many in the region, was surprised by the Bethel Native Corp.'s decision. YKHC will develop an official position at its meeting in April, he said.
"Nevertheless, the sale of alcohol in Bethel would certainly make it more difficult to achieve YKHCs mission and would make the good work our providers do on a daily basis that much harder," Winkelman said.
Bethel Native Corp. has offered no public rebuttal to critics of its plan and no response to questions about the amount of revenue the liquor store could bring the corporation and how that might translate into benefits for shareholders, to whom it distributes annual dividends.
Hoffman said the liquor store would take up a small portion of the building that until March 13 housed the newly revamped Swanson's supermarket. Swanson's opened there in July 2014 to great fanfare but closed less than nine months later.
Bethel Native Corp. had been thinking ahead about how best to utilize the $20 million space, which also houses a movie theater. Bethel Spirits was formed March 2, about two weeks before Swanson's closed.
There are signs that Bethel Native Corp. is not the only entity that wants to sell alcohol in the city of 6,000 people. Cynthia A. Franklin, director of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, said her office has seen an uptick just this week in inquiries from other parties about alcohol licenses in Bethel.
Its a notable change from 2010, she said, when at the behest of the Bethel City Council, the board rejected liquor license applications filed by restaurants, a store and the VFW post.
Is Bethel open for business again? We dont know, Franklin said.
Bethel Mayor Rick Robb is a supporter of local liquor sales. Large amounts of alcohol already make their way into Bethel legally, but resales are illegal. People purchase bootleg alcohol anyway and Robb believes a legitimate seller would curb some of the black market's more irresponsible practices while stimulating the local economy.
"A legal vendor wouldn't sell to people under 21, or those who are intoxicated," Robb said. "It can create legal jobs and paychecks and revenue."
Bethel had bars and a liquor store until a city ban on sales went into effect in the late 1970s. In 2009, voters opted to allow sales again and do away with importation limits. Residents currently can possess alcohol in homes after delivery by air carriers.
The city is surrounded by numerous villages that ban alcohol altogether, such as Akiachak.
Robyn Kasayulie, office assistant at the Akiachak Clinic, said she thinks the liquor store would have a negative effect on her community. Alcohol already infiltrates the village despite a local ban and she believes a store would add to the problem.
River travel between communities, common year-round, is already risky enough. Kasayulie believes an additional source of alcohol would make it even more dangerous.
Were a dry community and everybody here probably thinks its a really bad idea, Kasayulie said. There could be a lot of accidents on the river and probably more child neglect.
Correction: This story previously stated the city of Bethel had set importation limits on alcohol in 2009. Those limits were actually eliminated by voters that year.