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While the alcohol outlets that make the news are typically "mom and pop" liquor <br />stores located in low socioeconomics status (SES) neighborhoods, the liquor licensing <br />data' I use includes not only liquor stores, but also supermarkets, specialty wine stores, <br />grocery stores and gas stations. Moreover, a liquor store located in a low -SES <br />neighborhood is very different from a liquor store located in a high -SES neighborhood in <br />terms of the physical appearance of the store interior and exterior, their clientele and the <br />range of products sold. In view of the vast heterogeneity that exists between outlets <br />located in different neighborhoods, I group outlets by using the average of the 1990 and <br />2000 levels of median household income of the census tract in which the outlet is located. <br />I then considered outlets belonging to the top 2 and bottom 2 SES quintiles separately. <br />One common complaint against some alcohol outlets is that because they tend to <br />be the only stores open till late at night or even into the early morning hours, they serve <br />as a neighborhood congregation place for people involved in illicit activities. In addition, <br />it is common knowledge that different types of crime occur at varying frequencies during <br />different times of the day. To determine how an entry or exit of an alcohol outlet affects <br />crime during different times of the day, I split up my crime database into four categories <br />of equal time intervals. <br />Assuming externalities stemming from alcohol outlets are fully capitalized into <br />property prices, we can use the change in residential property transaction prices as a <br />measure of the costs (benefits) alcohol outlets impose on communities through urban <br />decay (development). By integrating a difference -in -difference model into a hedonic <br />regression framework, the marginal impacts of recent (within 12 months) alcohol outlet <br />openings and closings on the residential property transaction values in its neighborhood <br />are estimated. As before, I examine the differential effect of outlets in low and high -SES <br />neighborhoods separately. <br />Upon the opening of alcohol outlets in low -SES neighborhoods, I find that the <br />estimated increase in property crime density (number of property crimes per square mile <br />per month) is much higher than when I considered all outlet openings together. Within <br />0.1 miles of new outlets in low -SES neighborhoods, property crime density increases as <br />' Previous studies that examine the relationship between alcohol outlet density and crime (e.g., Scribner et <br />al., 1995; Scribner et al., 1999; Gorman et al., 1998) do not distinguish between outlets situated in different <br />neighborhoods. <br />4 <br />