We don't usually think of it this way, but booze can be a force for tremendous community good and a real redevelopment engine. Consider Northern Liberties. Long before the Piazza opened up and the fine restaurants moved in, Northern Liberties was known for its bar scene. Establishments like the Standard Tap and the 700 Club (now more than a decade old) were among the first major commercial investments in the neighborhood, helping to draw developer Bart Blatstein's interest.
Then there's the Dock Street Brewery on 50th Street and Baltimore Avenue, right along the border between gentrified University City and West Philadelphia.
"What people told me a year after we opened up was that real estate values were higher and that the neighborhood was safer because you've got a big community anchor now where before there was nothing," said Dock Street owner Rosemarie Certo.
With the right owners, bars and pubs create a sense of place and community that few other establishments can. And, as Certo says, they can enhance public safety by increasing foot traffic well into the night.
Wine and liquor stores may do less for community redevelopment than a great local bar, but does anyone really think a fine wine shop in Rittenhouse Square would attract loitering drunks and vagrants?
Rather, the shop would provide residents and BYOB diners with the variety of quality wines and liquors that one gets in almost any other big U.S. city. Granted, easy access to a nice Burgundy isn't a natural right, but it's the sort of civilizing perk one expects in the center of a major metropolis, and something that the LCB has by and large been miserable at providing.
