Wine Thief Prevails Against High Competition

A Crown Street wine shop has succeeded in stopping a booze-dispensing competitor from opening down the street, at least for now, according to a proposed agreement that would put an end to a months-long court case.

That almost-resolved legal dispute involves RAL Enterprises LLC, the city’s Board of Zoning Appeals, and Crown Court Apartments LLC.

Those three parties have now signed a proposed agreement that would reverse the zoning relief at the center of the case.

Back in January, the plaintiff, a holding company controlled by the Wine Thief’s Karl Ronne, sued to overturn a liquor-store-enabling approval granted by city zoning commissioners. 

Ronne’s company filed the appeal because the owner of a new 132-unit apartment complex at Crown and High Streets wanted to open up a ​“package” store in the building’s vacant groundfloor retail space.

That would put the new package store roughly 1,000 feet away from the Wine Thief’s longtime home at 181 Crown St. 

City law, meanwhile, requires package stores to be placed 1,500 feet apart.

On Jan. 11, the zoning commissioners signed off on the Crown/High landlord’s requested variance. 

And on Jan. 28, Ronne’s company sued — claiming that the Crown/High landlord did not have a legally valid ​“hardship” necessary to win such zoning relief. 

During an interview with the Independent in February, Crown/High landlord-hired attorney Jim Segaloff criticized the lawsuit as ​“an effort to hinder competition” among wine shops in the downtown area. 

Wine Thief company-hired attorney Bernard Pellegrino told the Independent for that same previous article in February that the city law about distance between package stores was clear, and his client’s appeal was about the enforcement of that regulation. ​“While some may quibble with the intent as anti-competitive, that is the law,” he said. ​“The fact of the matter is that there is no legal hardship that supports the granting of the variance in this case.”

There are also already two other package stores — College Wine and Temple Wine & Liquor — within a block of the Wine Thief’s Crown Street location.

More than 10 months later, on Oct. 19, the Wine Thief holding company, the Crown/High landlord, and the city’s BZA filed a five-page motion for judgement by stipulation with the state court.

Since the time of the BZA’s variance approval, the proposed stipulation reads, ​“the parties have discussed the merits of the appeal and the costs and expenses that further litigation would impose.”

“Without admitting or denying the allegations in the Plaintiff’s complaint,” it continues, ​“the parties hereby stipulate that the Court may enter a judgment in favor of the Plaintiff reversing the approval by the BZA without costs to any of the parties.

“Crown Court reserves the right to seek future approvals for the use of the Crown Court property, as may be permitted, including but not limited to the use challenged by the Plaintiff’s complaint.”

The proposed stipulation is signed by Pellegrino, Segaloff, and city attorney Roderick Williams.

On that same day, the parties also filed a so-called ​“caseflow request” with the court seeking to schedule to coordinate the BZA’s approval of the stipulation.