New Haven Independent

The commissioners voted Wednesday night to reject Gurjant Narain’s plan to turn his Mobil station at Whalley and Sherman into a reconfigured Best Gas with a two-story, 2,500-square-foot convenience store.

The commissioners left Narain the option of resubmitting a new plan, after neighbors blasted the idea of another convenience store as harmful to the vision they’ve been working with the city to create a more attractive Whalley Avenue — An avenue with more coffee shops, one speaker said.

Businessman John Vuoso recently declared that he would bring enough of a crowd from the Whalley Avenue and Sherman area to make a ruckus at Wednesday night’s meeting.

Only five people besides Vuoso (pictured) showed up. Yet they represented half a dozen local improvement and management groups, easily hundreds of people. Not a one of their members, they said, is in favor of the convenience store Gurjant Narain wants to install on his reconfigured gas station.

Last week the Board of Zoning Appeals had given him a variance to proceed. Wednesday night at City Plan was to be different.

“We are just all convenienced out,” declared Peaches Quinn (pictured with Robert and Francine Caplan, on the far left), an activist with the WEB (Whalley, Edgewood, Beaver Hills) management team. “Within four blocks there are six convenience stores,” she said, “and Shaw’s makes seven. There is nothing in this plan that reflects our vision of Whalley Avenue.”

Narain’s new design would eliminate one gas island but increase the number of “dispensers” pumping economy gas from six to eight.

The soft-spoken Narain, along with colleagues and friends, including a designer of his proposed convenience store, said that he is a reliable, well-liked businessman. He said he has renovated stations in West Haven and elsewhere, reducing crime and enhancing appearance.

Narain (pictured with his friend Avtar Singh) said his establishments have never been robbed. Nevertheless, added his designer, he is thinking of putting in bullet-proof glass.

Commissioners’ questions and statements by Vuoso and his colleagues reflected, well, deep skepticism. Concerns centered on teenagers loitering, on the extremely tight maneuvering of tanker trucks delivering fuel, and on potential logjams of cars looking for gas savings and backing out across sidewalks onto Whalley.

Francine Caplan, representing Whalley Avenue Revitalization (“WAR”) and the Whalley Avenue Special Services District, declared, “We don’t need delis or convenience stores. We need coffee shops and steps to make Whalley beautiful. We implore you,” she said to the commissioners, “Whalley has been often ignored by the city. While the concern for traffic safety is real and for danger of attracting crime is real, you don’t need to do traffic studies or ask the proponent to install security cameras. [Narain’s plan included that and bright lighting.]

“The simple fact is we need to make Whalley beautiful for pedestrians and bikes, and this is not it. Will you help us by rejecting this request?”

Letters from Aldermen Carl Goldfield and Moti Sandmen lobbied for rejection too. Businessman Pat Minori (pictured) took to the map to show that fuel tankers have already destroyed the fence adjoining his poultry business with Narain’s property.

“With the new configuration, the longer islands, it’s going to be worse,” he said. “I’ll need him to put up a fence. But frankly it’s so tight already, the extension of the pumps will exacerbate that.”

Rick Raymond, representing Narain, offered to do the traffic study, and he objected to the characterization of “cheap gas,” that would attract hordes of new bargain seekers (Vuoso had declared double to triple the number of cars would patronize the place). “15 cents cheaper is not going to happen. Maybe five cents.”

Tom Talbot, a staffer with the City Plan Commission, said he had been listening carefully and could see but one conclusion - the number of pumps was going to increase from six to eight and a 2,200 square foot convenience store would attract many customers - namely, that accepting the proposal would lead to an increase in intensity of traffic on the property and in the area. An over-intensity.

Among the most moving testimony was George Rose’s (pictured at the top of the story): “I’ve seen a kid, hanging out at the store at Whalley and Winthrop, kill a man because he was eating a certain sandwich. Someone put him up to it. Kids should be home. We do a disservice to them by expanding convenience stores.”

Talbot added another potential basis for rejection: that the very idea of a convenience store might not fit with the spirit of the Whalley Avenue Overlay District (WAOD). The city, at the instigation of the Whalley Avenue Special Services District, adopted WAOD to create a more traditional streetscape, with stores at the street line and more residential and mixed use.

Commissioner Elijah Huge was inclined to reject the proposal once and for all. “I just don’t see how this even took the first step to addressing the values reflected in WAOS. It’s just something that could be on any strip mall.”

Commission Chair Pat King was less dismissive, suggesting that perhaps a traffic study would demonstrate a new plan that could work to the satisfaction of commissioners and the public. A vote to reject without prejudice would therefore permit Narain to come back with a re-thinking of the project.

The vote was taken and all hands raised to deny without prejudice. “Let them come back if they want with a new utilization,” she said.

So Francine Caplan’s prayer appeared to be answered, for now. Narain left before he could be asked what his next steps might be.