Retail

West Berkeley Walgreens seeks beer/wine approval

June 29, 2010 1:58 pm by Lance Knobel

A Berkeleyside reader writes in to spread the word about a meeting at the Shattuck Hotel tonight at 7pm between lawyers representing Walgreens and residents local to the Walgreens on San Pablo and Ashby Gilman, Telegraph and Adeline. Walgreens wants to sell beer and wine at the stores, and is required to notify residents living within 1,000 feet of their intentions.

The Berkeleysider who lives near the Adeline store notes:

I know there are many neighbors in our area that are opposed to this. It is interesting to note that there are many outlets to buy wine and beer in our area although the majority of them close relatively early. Walgreens is open til 12am and no doubt will do the overwhelming majority of business after Berkeley Bowl closes (between 8pm and 12am). Our neighborhood has enough problems as it is and having late alcohol sales does not seem wise and just exposes us to more treacherous conditions.

What do other West Berkeley residents think?

Update Laura Menard writes in the comments clarifying the Walgreens stores at issue.

6 Comments

Tagged ,
?
  • http://bikemandan.com Dan

    What time is the meeting? Id like to be there

    The last thing we need in our neighborhood is another venue to buy booze

  • laura menard

    I just checked with Walgreens attorney and confirmed that the locations requesting alcohol sales are Gilman, Telegraph and Adeline Sts.

    The San Pablo location is not included.

    Problems with alcohol sales in Berkeley seem to be related to two primary issues, over-concentrations meaning density of outlets and hours of operations. As a member of the recently disbanded BAPAC, Berkeley Alcohol Policy Advocacy Coalition, we have concerns about all three locations.
    BAPAC spent years drafting an environmental policy which the city council endorsed unanimously, only to see the program disappear courtesy of Mayor Bates. The Walgreens at Gilman has the potential for loitering problems because of the setting/ architecture.

  • http://www.davosnewbies.com Lance Knobel

    The meeting tonight is at 7 p.m.

  • laura menard

    The city of Berkeley does not have any functioning oversight for alcohol sales, which means promises by operators to maintian responsible sales are not subjected to any monitoring/ enforcement oversight. The burden is on the community not the operators to address complaints. The history of nuisance abatement or even just responding to complaints in a timely meaningful manner in Berkeley is abysmal.

    Under Mayor Bates direction alcohol sales downtown have recently expanded to include quick serve restaurants. They can now obtain an over the counter AUP without a public hearing. In the current economic situation more and more businesses are relying heavily on alcohol sales, remember for every dollar spent on alcohol, the public health and safety costs are 4-5 times.

    San Francisco is finally considering how to address the burden of public health costs due to alcoholism, while Berkeley is expanding unregulated sales and has undermined the implementation of the BAPAC environment prevention and enforcement program.

    From our neighborhood listserve, a message written by a residents notifying us about tonight meeting:

    Here is the letter was signed by Wallgreens attorney Robert Nicholas on the letterhead of attorney Haas Najarian, 58 Maiden Lane, 2nd Floor, SF, CA,
    94108, 415-788-6330 and 415-391-0555. They are representing Walgreen’s, in an application to City of Berkeley Planning Dept for a Conditional Use
    Permit for off site sales of beer and wine at Walgreens at 2810 Adeline
    (across from Berkeley Bowl). They claim to be notifying all residents
    within 1000 Ft. They claim that the decision was not made lightly, but is based on extensive research into retail trends, buying needs, customer demand. They have added many grocery items over the years, such as eggs, cereal,milk, juices, soda, deli meats, cheese, pre-made sandwiches, chips, cracker, nuts, and can goods over the years to improve the convenience of one stop shopping.

    They will limit the alcohol space to less than 2% of floor area, (18-18F of
    shelf space, 5-10F of cooler space, in 23,965 SF floor area store.) Only
    employees who are over 21 and have alcohol responsibility training will be
    able to handle the alcohol. They will have no alcohol advertising in the
    windows or external to the store. They will be selling only premium wines
    ranging in price from 9 to 20, and beer only in 6 pack, 12 pack or cases.
    They will have no hard spirits, no talls or single cans or bottles of beer,
    and no malt liquor with alcohol content in excess of 5.9%.

    They are hosting a meeting where residents can voice their questions or
    concerns at Shattuck Hotel, 2086 Allston Way, 7 pm, June 29, 2010.

  • Jane Tierney

    Like gambling game rooms, sales of alcohol, especially in these locations, only serve to reinforce the exploitation of younger adults and people who can least afford it. Yes, people can go to other locales to buy alcohol, but convenience is sometimes all the motivation or opportunity some need, esp. at 11:55 pm.

    How does this better our community?

    It is unfortunate that the City of Berkeley seeks to rely on these streams of tax revenue to balance the budget, instead of taking a hard look at historical entitlements for staff, and bringing them in line with current business-world benefits. For example: to not have public pools for Berkeley residents but offer steep discounts to city employees so they can exercise for free, seems to fly in the face of why we have a city staff to begin with. The tail is wagging the dog.

  • Peter

    Did anyone attend the meeting? What was the outcome? Personally, I don’t see a problem with Walgreens selling beer and wine. In fact, I’d rather buy from them as opposed to the shady corner liquor stores. The letter sent from the attorney seems to indicate that Walgreens will make every effort to sell beer and wine responsibly. Who are we to say that Wallgreens wont hold up their end of the bargain? Again, I’d rather support the sale of beer and wine from a responsible business as opposed to careless corner liquor stores. If you go on the ABC website, you will find that many of the corner liquor stores have a history of violations.