The 35th Ward, located smack dab in the middle of Chicago`s North Side, is the kind of community most outsiders never hear about: Blue collar, working class, small and neat homes and apartments, and a population of about 70 percent Eastern European stock, many of them newly arrived to this country.
A steady job and a few glasses of beer after work is the daily routine for many of them, but that routine has been marred in recent years by a proliferation of taverns that attract not only neighborhood patrons, but also street gangs that prey on police-wary, street-innocent newcomers.
”There are stretches in my ward that have become markets for muggers,”
complained freshman Ald. Michael Wojcik Wednesday, as he became the 26th of the city`s 50 aldermen to move to outlaw any more liquor licenses in their wards.
”I`m not trying to put any good businessman out of business,” said Wojcik at a meeting of the City Council License and Consumer Protection Committee. ”But between the 2900 block and the 3700 block of Milwaukee Avenue, there are 29 taverns and liquor stores. There are another 29 between Kostner and Lawndale on Fullerton Avenue. This is too many. There is no need for that many,” he said.
In all, he said, there are 200 taverns and liquor stores serving the estimated 60,000 residents of his ward. Many of them cater to Eastern European immigrants who are unfamiliar with the ways of big city American streets.
”They have a few beers, and on the way home they get mugged or robbed. As we sit here, people are getting maimed, hurt, robbed and even killed,”
Wojcik said.
”Many of them are afraid of the police, because of Europe, so they don`t report these crimes or want to get involved with the police. And the street gangs prey on them. It`s become a major problem.”
About 18 months ago, the City Council passed an ordinance allowing aldermen to restrict, or ”cap,” the number of liquor licenses in all or portions of their ward after council members complained that raucous and dangerous taverns had become the No. 1 problem in many wards.
Since that ordinance was passed, 25 aldermen have invoked it, and Wojcik, whose proposal was recommended for City Council passage next week, became the 26th.
Ald. Mary Ann Smith, who said she has been battling bad taverns in her North Side 48th Ward since she became an alderman two years ago, said the fact that more than half of the city`s 50 aldermen have moved to limit liquor licenses in their wards indicated to her that there must be something wrong with the liquor license system.
Ald. Eugene Schulter (47th), the committee chairman, agreed and said he intends to hold hearings later this year in an attempt to redraft the liquor code to tighten the control the city and its liquor commission have over liquor establishments.
”There might even be a cap citywide, like several other cities have,”
said Schulter.
The city ordinance allowing ward by ward license limits is under challenge in U.S. District Court because it does not allow the transfer or sale of a liquor license to another party. Ald. Thomas Murphy (18th), whose ward was one of the first to adopt the restrictions, said the law does place
”extreme hardship” on older tavern owners who want to sell their establishments, but are not allowed to transfer the license.
Wojcik said he sympathized, but he was more concerned with the ”greater good” of his community.
”My constituents are really suffering. They are being victimized on their way home,” he said.
”I don`t want to deny them a place to stop and get a drink after work. But to have up to 20 bars in a four-block stretch is too much. It`s over-saturation,” Wojcik said.
