Specs may even buy out/rent out the rest of the shopping center to have a full store in the future.

Although Google Maps says it’s a Spec’s, it’s not unless they just changed ownership.

I think it’s still called Daily’s Liquor.

Spec’s has closed. Of course there’s still the lawsuit against the city and the county. Which they will probably win. Given the “variances” they give to developers, well, you get the picture. If not, no doubt it will be presented in court for all to see. The city did the same thing with 1717 Bissonnet. The only permit the developers lacked was the foundation permit. Then, suddenly, they had no permits at all.

We get rules like this because nobody except the owners of the businesses cares much, and nobody’s going to go to bat for people who sell booze, operate sexually explicit businesses, etc. What would make sense would be to come up with guidelines for what’s near schools based on what businesses might actually cause real observable problems. It’s really hard to imagine Specs fitting into that category.

But more immediately, if the city screws up as they did this time, an individual business owner should not be stuck with the bill.

I’m no means a libertarian. I’m just truly wondering why the city devotes time to regulations like this and the crazy sign ordinance (that won’t do anything to affect signs except for new businesses). Aren’t much more pressing issues? Actually there are many more pressing issues, but they aren’t politically sexy and they may actually involve our council members actually making a real tough decision.

The council members that are speaking up on real issues or criticizing waste are essentially made fun of and looked over.

I think the ordinance doesn’t come up much because most people buy their alcohol at a store that makes more than 50% of their sales from things other than booze which are not covered. I believe the argument for the original ordinance was not that kids would be tempted into buying a beer but that the mere prescence of these establishments would create an undesirable atmosphere near our schools. As has already been pointed out the ordinance really does nothing except highlight our ludicrously puritanical attitudes towards alcohol.

A majority of us who cared to vote put those regulation writers in office. If we oppose their regulations, we can vote in hard-core libertarians next time around–you, yourself, could run for office, assuming you meet the fairly minimal citizenship and residency requirements. That’s what representative democracy is all about.

Virtually any regulation is going to seem onerous or paternalistic to someone. I’m sure their are people who chafe at slowing down in school zones or stopping for stop signs. This regulation about alcohol sales must be more than 1000 ft from a school must be one that most Houstonians either agree with or don’t care about much, because I have never heard any particular opposition to it (except from you). This regulation hardly seems to have lessened the availability of alcohol in our fair city.

Anyway, like most commenters, I think it is unfair that if Spec’s was granted a variance that it should be yanked away. Maybe there is more to this story than we’re being told, but on the face of it, it looks like Specs is in the right.