Flossmoor Candidates on the Record about Liquor Sales across from HF

The League of Women Voter's debate at the Library last month included this exchange about the controversial proposal to sell alcohol across the street from Homewood-Flossmoor High School:

Q: How does a convenience store with a liquor license across the street from 3,000 students fit in with the character of Flossmoor.

BRAUN: It doesn't, in my opinion. State law normally requires that there be no liquor within I believe it's about 100 feet of a school itself and this is just outside of that. Now, I'm going to go out on a limb. I was not in favor of liquor for this going forward. I inquired at the time that the developer came before the village board in terms of what percentage of the retail sales are going to be liquor-related and its less than 8%. And my follow-up question to the developer was, if Flossmoor does not grant a liquor license, will this project go forward, and the answer was yes. This is not a deal killer based on what I've heard so far. So again, I expect to be contacting lots of residents and get community input in terms of what the village thinks about liquor across from the high school but going forward, I don't think it's a proper location.

You'll hear others say that well, they can go down to the Jewel or they can elsewhere, well let them go elsewhere! I don't think we need that across the street from the high school, at this point, I don't think it sets a proper example. Not that I'm against alcohol, for heaven's sake, but again, the high school district doesn't want it. 233, I've talked to the school board, they do not want liquor at that location, so that tells you something right off the bat. If they don't want it, I don't see why the village needs to press this if in fact we can confirm that this is not a deal killer, so to speak, for this establishment.

WILLIAMS: I'm not supportive at this point of hard liquor being sold, of packaged liquor, being sold in our community at all...

As we speak about this today, though, we don't sell packaged liquor, hard liquor in Flossmoor. They sell it in communities around us that are relatively close, it's available to people who would like to buy it. My biggest concern, even beyond the high school, is that it may attract people to our community to buy that liquor that we don't necessarily need to have attracted to our community...

But as I see it today, not only because of where it's located, across the street from the school, but because of the people it might attract, I can't support hard liquor being sold in town.

MINGA: At this point, I still have an open mind on this.

CRUM: As far as the liquor license is concerned, I'm a wine con, but I don't think that a wine store, a beer store, or a liquor store across the street from the high school is a proper place for it. And if it's proposed I would vote no.

What this means is that three trustees (Braun, Williams and Crum) have public committed to vote against Molski's proposal to sell liquor across the street from HF High School. There are six trustees on the village board.