nothin Less Booze for Broadway | New Haven Independent

Less Booze for Broadway

nhidover%20001.JPGThose residing near Broadway Liquor, just above Tower Parkway on Dixwell, or who are made dizzy by the traffic at the adjacent intersection, and who therefore have a sudden urge to purchase a fine Chateuneuf du Pape, will just have to walk 590 feet to the next nearest package store at Elm and Howe and make their purchase there.

That was the oenophiliac advice proffered by City Plan commissioners Wednesday night in denying the store the right to expand into the adjacent storefront.

Asvin Mardoaia, who runs the business, made his case for expansion before the Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA). (Click here for details.) The small size of his store prevents him from offering higher end wines, which his customers had been asking for, he said.

When the adjacent space became available, the opportunity presented itself. He wouldn’t be changing his function or even expanding the sales area by much, he said. He would simply have room to store those Chateau Rothschild bottles that people have been asking for.

Although the liquor store is conforming, a permit for expansion requires that businesses doing the same kind of thing not be within 600 feet, and there are, according to the staff report, not one but two. Also, the commissioners cited as grounds for denial that ultimately the area, per the city’s comprehensive plan, will be zoned institutional.” That means expanded alcohol sales are not to be encouraged there.

Neither Mardoaia nor the building’s owner was present for the CPC ruling, although they pleaded in person at the BZA, making the point that the desired expansion space has been unused and unloved for more than a decade, and that utilizing it would remove an eyesore and thereby also represents another benefit to the community.

nhidover%20002.JPGNeither the BZA nor the City Plan commissioners meeting Wednesday night were swayed.

Commissioner Roland Lemar said he was persuaded to vote to deny in part by two of several letters expressing strong opposition from the community: One was from the local alderman, Greg Morehead, and the second from Stephen Pitti, the master of Yale’s nearby Ezra Stiles College.

I am certain,” Pitti wrote, that the opening of a larger package store so close to our college will lead to increased alcohol consumption on our campus, creating many additional problems for New Haven, as well as for Yale.”

He described store patrons at times making their way across the busy parkway to sprawl across our lawn during daylight hours. During the summer months, we see New Haven kids and their families avoiding the package store traffic as they make their way to summer camps at Yale’s Payne Whitney Gymnasium, or to the Yale Bookstore.”

Broadway Liquor’s current state license to operate the package store expires in a year.

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