Peoria rejects liquor licenses as one owner says city is unfriendly to businesses

Peoria City Council members rejected two proposed liquor licenses Tuesday night, with one owner claiming the city is unfriendly to business and that she could have easily tried to operate in Peoria Heights or East Peoria instead.

The applications were for a brick-and-mortar store along Knoxville Avenue opposed by police, Tequila Ria Two, and for the Gopuff delivery service.

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Tequila Ria's application was to open a second liquor store, this one at 1621 N. Knoxville Ave. Owner Christell Frausto already operates a store at 3504 N. Prospect Road.  

The Peoria Police Department recommended a license for her second store be rejected because of a high volume of police calls to the area already, and because the store would be just a few blocks away from Peoria High School.

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The council agreed, voting 8-3 to reject the license, with only at-large members John Kelly, Zach Oyler and Beth Jensen voting to approve.

However, Frausto said she will continue to fight to get the application to sell packaged liquor. She said she can run her store better than the Walgreens down the street that sells liquor, and that all her businesses are in bad neighborhoods, so this would not be a new challenge for her. 

"I have security cameras, lighting, I designed this store for women," Frausto told the council. "It's in a centralized location off the highway, I would be catering to people driving home, people downtown. It's not just the area, foot traffic would be my bread and butter, but I manage all of my businesses in bad neighborhoods."

Frausto then argued to the council that Peoria needs to be more business-friendly and "moments like this one matter" in becoming more so. 

"I choose to grow in Peoria. I could easily go to (Peoria Heights) or East Peoria or Dunlap or up north, but this is where I live; I live in District 2," Frausto said. 

At the end of Tuesday's meeting, Frausto once again addressed the council, this time asking it to reconsider and inviting members to visit her store in hopes of getting them to change their minds. 

Gopuff app will not deliver alcohol

The Gopuff delivery app, which serves as a sort of virtual convenience store, delivering snack foods and other consumer goods, wanted to add alcohol to its list of deliverable items. 

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But in a 7-4 vote, the council rejected Gopuff's application to also deliver alcohol to customers in Peoria. Mayor Rita Ali, 2nd District councilmember Chuck Grayeb, 3rd District councilmember Tim Riggenbach and Kelly voted "yes."

The Police Department supported Gopuff's application on the grounds that no on-site liquor sales would happen at its 3455 N. University St. location, but councilmembers raised questions and concerns about how controlled the deliveries really could be. 

Gopuff made the case that all its delivery drivers are over the age of 21 and go through training on how to deliver alcohol to only customers 21 and older, including an electronic scan of IDs, but ultimately the council's hesitancy won out. 

At-large councilmember Kiran Velpula voiced concerns with all of Gopuff's "moving parts" in its delivery service before voting to reject the application. 

Velpula and at-large councilmember Sid Ruckriegel both questioned where deliveries could be made in citing safety concerns about the service. 

4th District councilmember Andre Allen was not convinced Gopuff's process would be able to go far enough in preventing the app from delivering to underage drinkers, particularly nearby Bradley University students. 

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Company officials said its identification process and training process for delivery drivers on serving alcohol was robust.

"That sounds great, but I was in undergrad once, and I understand how these things go, and if I was able to have alcohol delivered to a house, I would tell my friends to go to the bathroom and I'll talk to the delivery guy, then I am going to get my case and have a good time," Allen said. "Those are my concerns with this, and I am very hesitant to support this."