Liquor Houses Havens For Crime, Police Say

CHARLOTTE, N.C.,None — Police in Charlotte say they are focusing new energy on an old problem.

Liquor houses have been around since phohibition 80 years ago and they are still around today, selling alcohol with no regulation or supervision. The houses are creating a ripe environment for crime, which is spreading to neighborhoods across Charlotte.

Among modest homes in the Wilmore neighborhood just outside uptown Charlotte is one home at odds with the gentrification that surrounds it.

No one has lived at 1724 Dunkirk Drive for some time, but Officer Sean Franklin has still be called to the address many times.

WATCH: Police Cracking Down On Liquor Houses

"You'd walk in and there would be a circle of chairs... maybe a couch or something," Franklin said.

There would also be bottles of liquor -- all of them feeding the open secret that the Dunkirk Drive home was a liquor house.

Detective Gil Narvaez heads the unit that spent months investigating traffic and crowds before arresting Leon Mack on alcohol charges. But that was not before the liquor house had taken a toll on the neighborhood around it.

"You can only imagine if somebody would take a nightclub and just pop it right down next to the house you live in," he said.

For Elaine Mattox, she didn't have to imagine it. She lived through it.

"(There would be) loud noises, beer cans strewn alond the sidewalk," Mattox said. "I came home from work one night and there was actually blood in my driveway. From what, I don't have a clue. I think it was because of the liquor house."

The problems of liquor houses are not confined to Wilmore. Police said they have even found one in a penthouse unit of an uptown Charlotte condo complex.

And the people using the house are not confined to just drinking either, police said. Detectives said customers often trade stolen goods for liquor -- even mundane items like soap and shampoo -- which liquor houses then resell for even more profit.

But Narvaez says it's serious and violent crimes that have him most concerned.

He said the houses are also haven for drug use and sales as well as illegal gambling and violence problems. In fact, the same time police seized more than 30 liters of liquor on Dunkirk Drive, they found a collection of guns as well.

Police said two years of crime reports full of armed robberies, violent assaults, car and home break-ins are all connected to liquor houses.

"The romantic vision of a 1930s speakeasy during prohibition is not what it is," said Curtis Watkins, vice president of the Wilmore Neighborhood Association. "I mean, this is something that is serious."

Police said progress can be slow because undercover officers have to get inside the illegal clubs. But neighbors said there is little question that shuttign them down is helping neighborhoods.

"The street has been very quiet, no beer cans. As you can see, there's no beer cans thrown along the street. It's coming up; the neighborhood is improving," Mattox said.

In fact, since the Dunkirk Drive liquor house was shut down, the Wilmore community has had the biggest drop in crime in the city.

And police said they are continuing to target liquor houses one crime -- and one bottle -- at a time.

WSOC