When one looks at the contributors to Councilman Bernard Parks’ election campaigns — his losing one for county supervisor and his current one for re-election to the City Council — one sees a glaring disconnect between the residents he is elected to serve and the interests of the people and entities who are paying for his campaigns.

For example, Parks may have more liquor stores, predatory lenders, low land use establishments, landlords and apartment association PACs on his current 51-page list of campaign contributors than actual residents of his 8th District. Yet, businesses such as these have been the bone of contention between Parks and his constituents since the day he took office eight years ago. Eighth District residents have had more than their fair share of quality-of-life and survival wars with their councilman over the actions of about 85 percent of his current campaign contributors.

For example, in his supervisorial campaign, Parks-controlled election committees accepted at least $12,500 from liquor stores, and this year the figure could be doubled, considering the increased number of liquor store battles the community has waged and the number of pro-liquor store consultants engaged to fight for their proliferation in 8th District neighborhoods.

Almost immediately upon his taking office, Parks has been at war with Community Coalition, the South Los Angeles organization founded by Rep. Karen Bass that fights the alcohol, gun and drug industries by influencing public policy. Among other things, the organization is dedicated to reducing the number of liquor stores and alcoholic outlets that line South L.A. streets.

Parks, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to have a problem with them and quickly outraged the community early in his tenure by supporting the issuance of liquor licenses to even more venues in a neighborhood already known for its cheek-by-jowl liquor outlets and storefront churches.

Community Coalition organized the residents around the issue, held community meetings and protest actions and fought off Parks’ apparent insistence that liquor use in the district ought not be curtailed. Community Coalition and the residents thought otherwise, claiming liquor stores to be “nuisance businesses” that invite public drunkenness, squalor and crime into areas where struggling families were trying to raise children and lead safe and decent lives, so they fought their councilman on the issue at every turn.

Eighth District neighborhood councils and block clubs eventually joined Community Coalition’s fight against Parks-supported liquor stores, which most recently included the figurative 2009-10 shoot-outs over Holiday, Lucky, and Century liquor stores and the Liquor Bank, which residents called, “the worst of the worst.”

Kokayi Kwa Jitahidi, a Community Coalition director deeply involved in the liquor store fights, said “liquor stores in South L.A. have been able to operate in a way that contributes negatively to our community — selling alcohol in single cups, allowing loitering, becoming targets and sites of crime and providing safe havens for prostitutes — yet they have had little, if any, accountability from City Hall.”

Holiday Liquor, at 92nd Street and Western Avenue, “was the epicenter of a lot of murders and the block clubs had spent years trying to get Holiday under control,” Jitahidi said. “The residents were most discouraged when they learned Holiday Liquor had contributed $500 to Parks’ re-election campaign,” he added.

Another Parks campaign contributor, Century Liquor, located near 38th and Western across the street from an elementary school and next to a park and a library, was the center of a two-year battle as the LAPD joined the community in fighting to have the liquor store’s license revoked. However, the zoning administrator only declared the store “a public nuisance” and imposed 25 strict conditions for its continued operation. Then another zoning hearing was held about Century Liquor at which Community Coalition continued to press for its license revocation, but Councilman Parks made an unprecedented personal appearance at the hearing and testified opposing revocation, saying he was seeking a developer to buy up the whole block, as the liquor store and a nearby recycling center were poor uses for the community. (That was almost two years ago. How’s that particular “developer search” coming?)

“While many people view liquor stores as small individually owned businesses, many of them in South L.A. are actually a part of larger politically sophisticated machines that have power and influence with City Hall,” Jitahidi said. “This includes not just the local network of Korean business owners and organizations, but politicians, lobbyists and groups which fight on behalf of major alcohol companies. The active role South L.A. liquor store owners are attempting to play in this year’s 8th Council election is an indication of the deep relationship they enjoy with the incumbent council person, who they perceive is at risk of losing his seat,” the anti-liquor store activist said.

Next week: Parks and his anti-renters and low land use (motels) contributors.