Thomas Breen photo
The former East Rock Pharmacy at 763-767 Orange St.
Common Grounds Co-Owner Dena Jara and local attorney James Perito at Tuesday’s meeting.
The cafe owners and managers taking over the shuttered East Rock Pharmacy are promising not only more coffee and baked goods for the neighborhood, but also fewer parking headaches for the cafe’s immediate neighbors.
Those promises were made in the basement meeting room of 200 Orange St. on Tuesday night during the latest monthly meeting of the Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA).
The board held a public hearing on two applications submitted by Diane Williams, the owner of 763 – 767 Orange St., the 1909-built, three-story building that was long the home of the recently shuttered East Rock Pharmacy, formerly the Hall Benedict Drug Company, at Orange and Linden streets.
Tuesday night’s BZA meeting.
Williams, through her holding company Formichella Associates LLC, applied to the board for a variance to permit 20 seats where six are allowed and for a special exception to permit the sale of baked goods in a residential district, with an eye towards installing Dena Jara’s Common Grounds cafe in the ground-floor commercial space that had housed the local pharmacy for a century before it closed late last year.
Jara and her husband already run two other Common Grounds cafes in the area, one in Branford and one in Hamden.
The board referred the special exception application to the City Plan Commission. It plans to vote on both the variance and the special exception applications at its next monthly meeting. (During its regular monthly meeting on Wednesday night, the City Plan Commission voted unanimously in support of recommending the BZA approve the special exception.)
Williams, Jara, and local attorney James Perito encountered no pushback on Tuesday night from either commissioners or from East Rock neighbors about adding bringing more coffee and pastries and another family-owned business to the neighborhood. They did get a modest earful from neighbors concerned about the impact that the new coffee shop will have on parking in East Rock.
East Rock neighbor Robert Bettigole.
Robert Bettigole, who lives next door at 760 Orange St., said that he loves coffee, and that the owners can borrow his espresso machine if theirs ever breaks down.
But, he said, “the big issue is parking.”
When the pharmacy was in that location, he said, his driveway was routinely blocked by customers, delivery people, and other employees. With the cafe’s proposed 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily hours, he said, he fears that his driveway will continue to be obstructed, this time by people jonesing for an early morning coffee or a late-night snack.
Andrea Konetchy, who lives next door at 762 Orange., said she too is concerned about cafe employees and customers adding more cars to an area where it’s already hard for residents to find a spot.
“We do have a parking issue,” she said.
763 Orange landlord Diane Williams and property manager Scott Williams.
Perito and Williams countered that the cafe will actually improve, not exacerbate, parking problems that existed when the pharmacy was in the neighborhood.
Perito said the cafe will have only one employee on site during the week, and only two on the weekends. That’s significantly fewer than the 15 to 20 people employed by the former pharmacy, he said.
Furthermore, he said, most of the pharmacy’s employees were delivery drivers, who were also the biggest culprits for blocking neighbors’ driveways for 15 to 30 minutes at a time as they dropped off drugs at the historic pharmacy.
“Our parking needs are at an absolute minimum” he said about the cafe.
Williams and her husband Scott, who manages the property, agreed.
Scott said that Bettigole and Konetchy were exactly right to be concerned about parking in the neighborhood. But, he said, the cafe, unlike the pharmacy, will not add to their parking concerns, and will actually have a positive parking impact in comparison to the pharmacy.
“They’re not gonna have 20 employees,” he said about the cafe.
“For the past 100 years,” he added, the pharmacy building “has been the hub of the community.” This cafe use will keep it as such, but with more foot traffic and less car traffic.
“It’s a family-owned business,” Diane Williams added in support of welcoming Common Grounds to the neighborhood. “It’s not a Starbucks.”
Why is it every small business (taxpaying) that comes to town gets a hard time from the neighbors or the zoning board or the Hysterical Society?? WE need every taxpaying vendor we can get. Parking is NOT an issue, it is an anachronism. Get a bike or use mass transit like the rest of us. By the way, New Haven and Yale will be under water sooner than you think. Learn to swim and grow some gills.