In this sentences, you would use ‘ici’, ‘là’ is almost never used in the beginning of a sentence.

Ici, les gens apprécient une boisson occasionelle.

for the word ‘là’:

Il y a deux pubs (…). Ici les gens viennent souvent, là plus rarement.

In the above sentences, ‘ci’ refer the first named pub, ‘là’ the second one.

Depending on context, it is perfectly acceptable to start a sentence with “là”, or with another adverb.

Let’s take an example. This a paragraph from a recent news article:

En Europe des traitements sont développés pour des maladies rares, comme par exemple les maladies génétiques, même si cela touche peu de monde, puisque les patients ou la sécurité sociale peuvent payer. Mais là, les gens n’ont pas d’argent, donc il n’y a pas de stimulation.

“Là” is not strictly at the beginning of the sentence but the sentence could be rewritten without “mais”, so we can take it as:

Là, les gens n’ont pas d’argent, donc il n’y a pas de stimulation.

“Là” is used as opposed to Europe from where the reporter is writing.

From a Québec blog:

Là, les gens du coin redécouvrent la région et tout ce qu’elle a à offrir,

There’s no real opposition to “ici” in this context.

An another example from a local newspaper:

Là, les gens ont bien du retourner travailler et trouver un mode de garde pour leurs enfants.

In this case là is not used to express location but to express time (full phrase would be “À ce moment-là”), and there is no opposition to “ici”.

Let’s imagine the following context: I’m writing an article about a local café in a village.
After having described the actual layout of the place, the following sentence could very well be:

Là, les gens du coin se retrouvent de temps à autre autour d’un verre.

I’m afraid I can’t really explain the specifics (I suspect it just feels overly stiff/literary to me.), but I don’t think the added context makes là alone works. I’d either extend it with c’est là or use the "locative" (actually prepositional) pronoun y:

C’est là que les gens du coin se retrouvent de temps à autre autour d’un verre.

Les gens du coin s’y retrouvent de temps à autre autour d’un verre.

I think the exact french translation, in this particular sentence, would not be ‘Là’ but ‘Là-bas’. (but ‘là’ is still correct)
I can’t really explain why, but in France we would prefer ‘Là-bas’ to start the sentence.