{"id":7863,"date":"2016-10-25T08:00:28","date_gmt":"2016-10-25T15:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/bethel-sees-277000-in-revenue-this-year-from-alcohol-sales\/"},"modified":"2016-10-25T08:00:28","modified_gmt":"2016-10-25T15:00:28","slug":"bethel-sees-277000-in-revenue-this-year-from-alcohol-sales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/bethel-sees-277000-in-revenue-this-year-from-alcohol-sales\/","title":{"rendered":"Bethel sees $277,000 in revenue this year from alcohol sales"},"content":{"rendered":"

BETHEL<\/strong> \u2014 Bethel has collected over a quarter of a million dollars in alcohol sales taxes since a pizza shop sold the city\u2019s first beer in more than four decades earlier this year.<\/p>\n

Fili\u2019s Pizza and AC Quick Stop have paid Bethel more than $277,000 this year in alcohol taxes, with the liquor store contributing the majority of the funds. Another liquor store recently opened, but its sales weren\u2019t included, KYUK-AM reported.<\/p>\n

AC Quick Stop opened in May and has paid nearly $272,000 in alcohol taxes. The pizza shop has paid about $5,000 under the 12 percent alcohol sales tax since selling its first beer in April.<\/p>\n

The two vendors have made nearly $2.4 million combined since the city\u2019s first legal alcohol sales.<\/p>\n

Bethel\u2019s police chief and other city officials had voiced concerns about approving liquor licenses, saying easy access to alcohol would increase crime in the community of about 6,200 people in southwest Alaska.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were really expecting to see a real significant uptick,\u201d Bethel District Attorney Michael Gray said. \u201cAnd so far, in terms of the cases referred to us, we just haven\u2019t seen it.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Gray said the villages are a different matter, and that he suspects legal sales may have caused a spike in crime there.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn August and September we were noticing a significant uptick in the referrals for sexual assaults in the river villages. I can\u2019t say that that\u2019s related but I certainly suspect that it may be,\u201d Gray said.<\/p>\n

The Association of Village Council Presidents recently passed a resolution condemning the effect of alcohol sales on the villages.<\/p>\n

Some of the revenue generated from alcohol sales should go toward the Bethel Police Department to help make a positive difference in the community, Gray said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor years they\u2019ve been understaffed, they have a hard time. Bethel\u2019s a hard town to recruit people to come and live in,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BETHEL \u2014 Bethel has collected over a quarter of a million dollars in alcohol sales taxes since a pizza shop<\/a> sold the city\u2019s first beer in more than four decades earlier this year. Fili\u2019s Pizza and AC Quick Stop have paid Bethel more than $277,000 this year in alcohol taxes, with the liquor store contributing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-7863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7863\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7863"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=7863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}