The state has finally signed a lease and now the “premium” Wine and Spirits Shop proposed for the strip mall at 43rd and Chestnut that sparked some controversy in the Spruce Hill neighborhood last year is about three months away from opening.
The Zoning Board of Adjustment (ZBA) approved the project last June, but many residents began wondering if the 5,000-square-foot shop would ever become a reality. Barry Grossbach, who heads up zoning for the Spruce Hill Community Association, said renovation has begun on the end units – formerly a check cashing spot and Risque, an adult video store (pictured) – and will take about 45 days. State officials say it will take another 45 days to get the store stocked and ready to open.
Several residents who live near the proposed location, including Muslim residents from the nearby Masjid al-Jamia mosque, opposed the store. Their opposition was met with support from scores of other residents, which made for a contentious ZBA hearing last summer.
The Wine and Spirits Store at 4301 Chestnut St. will be a a “premium collection” store similar to the ones near 12th and Chestnut and 19th and Chestnut, which feature a broader selection of products than other stores and do not sell small package items such as pints and half pints. This will be the first premium store in West Philadelphia.
The new location will take some pressure off the store near 50th and Baltimore, where lines have swelled since the closing of the shop near 41st and Market in January 2012.
– Mike Lyons
April 16th, 2013 at 11:14 am
YES.
April 16th, 2013 at 11:52 am
Hooray! Going to celebrate with a footlong from Subway.
April 16th, 2013 at 12:34 pm
I’ll join you with a bottle of MD 20/20 at the Subway. They are zoned for outdoor seating right?
April 16th, 2013 at 11:30 pm
[moderated] you live in philly, why would you go to subway for a sandwich
April 17th, 2013 at 3:07 am
You must be new here serpico. That Subway is a very popular place where people in this neighborhood like to hang out. Needless to mention the owners are extremely nice and make the best Subway sandwich in this area.
April 17th, 2013 at 10:22 am
Serpico: the Subway is also a kind of totem for those who like to mention it in order to prove that they’re not silly hipsters who get riled up about silly things like having a chain restaurant fill up their alley with smelly dumpsters, and then do silly hipster things like go to public meetings and zoning board hearings to lobby on behalf of what they believe to be their community’s best interests. It’s really more of a religious icon than a sandwich shop. You’ll even see some people kiss it when they walk past.
April 18th, 2013 at 9:03 pm
I like to mention it because I oppose it completely. It’s ridicule pure and simple. Too advanced in my age to be a hipster and without the necessary teeth to choke down a footlong without a Magic Bullet, I take any and every opportunity to mock it. But I cannot wait for this high-end liquor at 43rd and Chestnut. The neighborhood is screaming for it. I mean against it. But everyone else wants it and neighbors are powerless against progress. I hate progress so I hate Subway. Subway=progress.
April 18th, 2013 at 11:12 pm
I still feel this is in very bad taste, and shows a lamentable lack of respect to our Muslim neighbors who contribute so much to the neighborhood.
This could have been opened somewhere else. And honestly, I have never had trouble with overly long lines at the 50th and Baltimore location (they’re hardly that long!) or with making the ARDUOUS 5-minute trolley/bus trip all the way to 19th and Chestnut for my fancy “upscale” wines.
April 18th, 2013 at 11:15 pm
Prioritizing luxury convenience over human consideration is not what I like to see in this neighborhood.
April 18th, 2013 at 11:50 pm
Teri –
First of all, there’s no way that trip to 19/chestnut takes 5 minutes unless you’re coming from, say, 30/chestnut.
Second of all, people other than Muslims live here and have a say too. How is this a lack of respect? Somebody who doesn’t want to go a liquor store, doesn’t go there. Was a porn store and a check cashing place better? I live 2 blocks away from the new store, and I’m all for it.
April 19th, 2013 at 2:19 am
Isn’t pressing religious morals on the neighborhood a lack of consideration? No one is forcing anyone to purchase liquor. I assume my Muslim neighbors can walk past as they do the pubs and other purveyors of sin they come across already.
April 19th, 2013 at 10:09 am
I have yet to see, in any capacity, opposition from anyone representing the Muslim people in the neighborhood or from either of the two mosques. There are are lot of vague observations that “the Muslims are against it,” and then commentary for or against Muslim people in general. I can’t help but feel that we are assigning a perspective to people or a group of people who really haven’t said much on the topic.
April 19th, 2013 at 10:39 am
@Corey and others. There was strong opposition to the store from several Muslim members of the community, including lengthy petitions and letters and a fairly strong turnout (along with a strong turnout in favor of the store) at the Zoning Board of Adjustment hearing last June. Here’s the story:
https://www.westphillylocal.com/2012/06/06/lively-debate-at-liquor-store-hearing-decision-tabled/
April 19th, 2013 at 12:13 pm
My religion is offended by people who eat green vegetables so no green vegetables should be allowed to be sold to any other people who don’t happen to follow my religion within a five block radius of me, of course.
BTW – if the privitization bill that already passed the PA state House makes it out of the the State Senate, the beer distributor at 43rd and Walnut would by-right be allowed to become a full scale private liquor store, directly across the street from the mosque. Sort of seems like that would be of more concern than a replacement state store for the 40th and Market store at 44th and Chestnut.
April 19th, 2013 at 12:19 pm
Editor
Thank you for the information and for refreshing my memory. I did read that article way back when. So there is indeed opposition from many members of the Muslim community. The most vocal opposition seems to come from Mr. Falcone, whose opposition may indeed be part due to his faith, as a Christian (he is a minister, I believe). I’m still a bit uneasy with the delineation of those who like the idea of the store vs. the Muslim people. There are those who are opposed who are not Muslim, and I would guess that there are Muslim people in the community that are indifferent or who are for the store.
April 24th, 2013 at 10:23 am
Whatever religion or creed the people are that oppose only on religious values is irrelevant. They have no business pushing their morals on the rest of us. It was HIGHLY reported over and over the nearby mosques vocally rejected the store. No one is being racist, no one here said every Muslim in West Philly objected. It is fact a vocal group DID.
April 19th, 2013 at 1:20 pm
Corey. Definitely true. There were others who were not Muslim who were opposed and we heard from Muslims who could care less about the liquor store. Good point. – Mike
April 20th, 2013 at 11:31 pm
If your personal beliefs tell you not to shop there, don’t shop there.
April 24th, 2013 at 11:01 am
I love talking about that Subway. It never gets old. I especially love this line, up-thread:
silly things like having a chain restaurant fill up their alley with smelly dumpsters,
I did not know that dumpsters at chain restaurants were smellier than other restaurant dumpsters! Have people been doing a sniff test, or…?
In any case, I don’t think anyone is trying to silence objection to a business proposal. Everyone can, and should, speak her mind, but that doesn’t necessarily trump the opinions of others or, frankly, of the person holding the purse strings. And in this case, I don’t see those purse strings as being held by a villain or a robber baron, just someone who wants to run a legal business in an underserved part of the city.
In cities, people need to coexist. Don’t eat bacon? Go to the halal butcher. We have one! Drink wine? Go to the wine store. We have one!
Frankly, I think it’s lovely that way.
April 24th, 2013 at 5:49 pm
Christina: the best way to “coexist” with your neighbors is to treat their concerns with respect, make your own needs and interests known, and negotiate the differences in the appropriate venues, whether informal (community meetings) or official (zoning boards).
Looking back at the Subway discussion, it seems it was less about the trash and more about alley parking and traffic, but the larger point is the same: neighbors (and I’m not one) were perfectly justified in suspecting that a high-volume fast-food business owned by a distant corporate parent would a) produce more trash and traffic than many businesses and b) be less responsive to neighbors’ needs than a locally-owned business. Would Subway’s dumpsters be smellier than Pickles and Pies’? Quite possibly, yes.
I’m not a person who thinks the Subway was the end of West Philly as we know it. But neither am I one who thinks that Silly Hipsters Iz Silly because they worry about noise, trash and traffic in what amounts to their backyard – or because they’d prefer to see a locally-owned business someplace rather than a chain. Same with the liquor store. Don’t care one way or another, glad to have another around, glad to hear the opponents of that location make their case against it.
So, in my opinion, what “never gets old” is the pleasure of living in a community where people don’t just roll over and take it because somebody tells them they have to. If you’d like to live in a community where businesses and landlords do what they want and everybody else shuts up and deals with it, there are plenty available to choose from.