Long Beach weighs loosening alcohol restrictions for boardwalk businesses

Long Beach leaders are set Tuesday to consider allowing alcohol sales at businesses on the city’s boardwalk following more than a decade of prohibition, marking the most recent effort to lift the ban after a similar proposal was shot down in 2017.

City rules currently allow businesses with openings onto the boardwalk to sell only nonalcoholic beverages, while also banning any new drinking establishments from getting licenses citywide.

Long Beach city code states the current policy’s purpose is to limit “increasing evidence of rowdyism, vandalism, hooliganism and loud and boisterous conduct disturbing the peace and tranquility of the city and its residents.”

The five-member City Council will weigh whether to nix both of those rules from the code on Tuesday evening. The meeting is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. at City Hall.

City spokesman John McNally emphasized in a phone call that the policy change would not allow drinking on the boardwalk proper, or on the beach. It would only allow the sale and consumption of alcohol on-site at businesses along the boardwalk's north side, he said.

Tuesday’s proposal is at least the second time in the past decade that Long Beach has considered relaxing its ban on boardwalk-adjacent booze.

In 2017, the city mulled allowing concession stands that serve food on the boardwalk to also sell alcoholic drinks. Businesses that, at the time, had recently set up shop on the boardwalk requested the policy change, Newsday reported.

The 2017 proposal would not have allowed alcohol to be sold outside the concession stands, nor would it have overturned the ban on open containers on the beach and boardwalk, Newsday also reported.

The issue became a point of contention between the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce — which supported the policy change as a boon for local businesses — and an alcohol and drug prevention group called Long Beach Aware, which led the opposition.

City Council members ultimately voted 4-1 to reject that policy change, expressing concerns about issues ranging from overconsumption to the city’s liability and hours of operation.

The five-member body will reconsider that decision, as well as a repeal of the citywide ban on new alcohol-selling businesses, during its meeting.

Newsday's John Asbury contributed to this story.

By Sam Kmack

sam.kmack@newsday.com

Sam Kmack covers the Town of Islip for Newsday. He is a graduate of the University of Southern California and previously worked as a city watchdog reporter in the Phoenix metro area, as well as an investigative journalist at the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting.