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Sunday, August 16, 1998
New stadium requires separation of church and
home plate: beer sales must be 300 feet from church
HOUSTON (AP) -- To beat a Depression-era alcohol ban, city
officials interested in seeing beer sold at the new Astros stadium
are having to fine-tune the ballpark entrance.
A 1930s Texas law that applies to Houston prohibits businesses
from selling alcoholic beverages within 300 feet of a church.
If measured as the crow flies, the new 42,200-seat ballpark
under construction would not be able to sell beer. It's about
100 feet from the front door of Annunciation Catholic Church,
says Assistant City Attorney Paul Bibler.
Such a legal interpretation would be costly to Astros owner
Drayton McLane Jr., who rakes in millions of dollars annually
from selling beer during ball games.
Lucky for McLane, he's got a mighty helpful new neighbor.
Church officials welcome the activity on the largely vacant
side of downtown, hoping the ballpark attracts other businesses
that transform decrepit buildings into going concerns.
"We certainly want to be a good neighbor," said Ron
Regan, spokesman for the Catholic Diocese of Galveston-Houston.
"We want to do everything we can to cooperate."
Last month, church officials provided grease to the skids of
what appeared to be a very sticky problem.
The law says that the 300 feet is measured from the entrance
of the church to the entrance of the establishment bearing liquor
and not in a straight line.
Instead, the proper way to measure is at right angles from
the entrance of the church to the street to the entrance of the
establishment.
In the past, the law has been circumvented by businesses that
didn't mind a little remodeling, he said.
"I've seen bars board up the front door and make the back
door the entrance in order to operate," Bibler said.
Though the church address is listed as 1618 Texas, where Annunciation
has a side door, church officials wrote the Astros July 6 that
the canopied front doors on Crawford are the public entrance.
Had the side door facing Texas Avenue been considered the public
entrance, the ballpark might have faced more trouble. It is only
about 100 feet directly across the street from a proposed ballpark
entrance.
The diocese letter states, however, that the side door is not
opened during the week and is only used Sundays for handicapped
parishioners.
Still, ballpark architects have had to design the stadium with
the law in mind to make sure that the entrance is not within 300
feet of the designated church entrance, said Mike Donovan of Hellmuth,
Obata & Kassabaum.
For example, fans won't actually enter the turnstiles to the
ballpark until they are roughly 330 feet away from Annunciation's
Crawford Street doors, he said.
A side entrance to the ballpark across from the church posed
more difficulty.
The entrance is directly between the southeastern edge of the
train station and the ballpark wall, which will hold the moving
apparatus for the retractable roof.
Turnstiles there will be recessed far enough from Texas Avenue
to make them exactly 305 feet, 10 inches from the church entrance.
"We have room to spare," Donovan said.
Success of the design won't be officially known until the Astros
apply for a permit from the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission,
Bibler said. At that time, commission officials will notify the
city, which will send inspectors to make precise measurements
and guarantee compliance with the law, he said.
"We're not expecting any problems," Bibler said.
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