Boozy Battle in South LA

Alcohol makes some people's lives more tolerable and makes other people's lives less so: There's an interesting uprising going up around Western and 39th Street in South LA because Community Coalition, a group "which has been actively opposing the proliferation of liquor stores in South Los Angeles for nearly 20 years," according to the Los Angeles Times, is trying to get the liquor license belonging to Century Liquor revoked. Given the store's location near a park and library, people buy their booze and then go hang out in the park, turning the park into a "neighborhood bar," according the paper. More via the paper: "The coalition's campaign against Century Liquor is part of its 18-month Neighborhood Transformation Project, an effort to reduce crime and violence in an area known as King Estates. The project kicked off earlier this month with a goal of enhancing safety in the vicinity of the library, which faces the liquor store, motels, a substance abuse rehabilitation center, an auto repair shop and a suspected crack house. "We don't have a problem with the store's owner," said Jung Hee Choi, spokeswoman for the coalition. "This is about reducing crime and violence in the neighborhood." [LA Times]