City of Warner Robins passes moratorium on liquor and vape shops 

WARNER ROBINS — At the Dec. 15 Warner Robins City Council meeting, the council approved a moratorium on liquor stores and various types of vape shops. 

At the meeting, City Administrator James Drinkard said the staff has been working on amendments and code changes to regulate package stores and vape shops. 

“The intent of this is to buy us some time and maintain the status quo for a maximum period of six months while we finalize ordinance changes and amendments to address these things [such as] potential changes in distance requirements, minimum lot sizes and minimum road frontages,” Drinkard said. 

Drinkard pointed out that one of the main aspects of this moratorium is to assess overall saturation so that there are no concentrations in some regions of the city. 

“This moratorium would be up to six months, but if we get all of the amendments and codes completed brought to you and they satisfy the concerns that have been brought forwards, then we would that moratorium sooner by adopting those amendments,” he said. 

According to Mayor LaRhonda Patrick, Warner Robins City Council has been considering the moratorium for over a year and weighing different options to ensure the city isn’t flooded with liquor and vape stores. 

Patrick shared that the growth of these businesses in the city was one of the deciding factors in this moratorium.

“There are a lot of concerns that cities will have when you have an influx of liquor stores coming into a community,” she said. “After we do our due diligence, we may find that we don’t have too many liquor stores in our community.” 

Patrick said it was their constituents, as well as other liquor store owners, who pushed for the moratorium to be put in place. 

“To them, we have too many, so we have to listen to our constituents, taxpayers and the business community. They have been very adamant for us to take a look at this, so we decided to take a look at it,” she said. 

For the vape stores, the constituents, more so than the business owners, were louder when expressing concerns, according to Patrick. She believes this moratorium will show the citizens that the city government is very serious about enforcing the best practices for these industries. 

“It’ll benefit our constituents by letting them know and see by not just talking but actually doing, and it shows them that you have a government that listens to you, and is not here for our own benefit, but here for the benefit of our community,” she said. “They’ll have the pleasure of knowing that there won’t be a liquor store or a vape store on every corner in the City of Warner Robins.” 

Patrick said the next steps will be to roll out new standards for the city’s zoning and liquor and vape store licensing, as well as to educate the community on the data they have gathered. 

“After we establish a new practice and new procedure process from the City of Warner Robins when it comes to these two types of stores, then we are going to have to implement, enforce and talk to the business owners and entrepreneurs who want to open these types of businesses in our community,” she said. “With fast growth, we have to grow smart, and a part of growing smart, you have to plan out these things so you’re not in a situation where a certain part of town becomes the liquor district or the vape district. You have to think about the hard choices ahead and plan accordingly so that our city will be situated in the best way to ensure great quality of life for everyone who lives here.”