For all y’all who have been hoping for another downtown grocery to open up at the Callaway site, we received confirmation last night there is another hurdle the city and developer will have to overcome to make it even possible.
In a response to an inquiry from Commissioner Scott Drake at last night’s Decatur City Commission meeting, Asst. City Manager Lyn Menne confirmed that Callaway site is subject to state and local alcohol restrictions due to its close proximity to Decatur High School.
As has been discussed and referenced here many times in the past, state law prohibits the sale of alcohol for off-premise consumption within 200 yards of a school.
Ms. Menne told the commission that the city has asked both the city attorney and the Downtown Development Authority attorney to look into the restrictions on businesses that sell alcohol on (restaurants) and off-premises (grocery stores) and has been told that the city has the ability to change the law regarding on-site consumption, which would allow restaurants to sell alcohol, but it’s a state law that governs off-site consumption sales.
This would limit the ability of the city and developer to attract a grocery store to the site, which has been a long-stated goal for the project.
However, Mayor Pro-Tem Kecia Cunningham noted that there is currently a bill before the Georgia Legislature that would ease restrictions on off-site alcohol consumption sales. Online Athens wrote about Senate Bill 91 recently HERE.
Stay tuned.
Have there been any studies by DDA or others which show that two grocery stores can exist in downtown Decatur? I’m not the biggest fan of the little Kroger, but I am also not a fan of building a ‘better’ grocery store at Calloway just to see Kroger leave and have that be a vacant building again without an idea of what to do with the property.
Regarding the bill to reduce the alcohol/children buffer, won’t somebody please think of the children!
Absolutely, the children. Reduce that buffer now. The last thing I want is my child having to traipse all over town just to pick me up a sixer on her way home from school.
Don’t the new learning cottages have a built-in growler station on the back for thirsty parents during drop-off/pick-up? Pretty sure that should be a standard feature given their expense.
*Obligatory Trader Joe’s mention*
Any kid stupid enough to try and buy beer within 200 yards of the place where almost every authority figure in their lives congregates is already destined for a life of failure…so what exactly is this law protecting us from?
Large legal bills
+1
As an aside, where are the jail buses going to park?
Where will the children have touch-a-truck day?
I’m sure they can do it over at Public Works.
We can turn touch a truck into a drinking game. Touch a truck. Take a shot.
I’m guessing the new Grindhouse Burgers must be just beyond the 200-yard limit? Can’t imagine them building there without being able to sell beer and alcoholic milkshakes…
The issue is sale for off-premise consumption.
Ahh, and the student was enlightened. Thanks, Roshi STG!
Nonsense tends to be confusing. 🙂
No problem, just anchor it with a Dollar General or Family Dollar. It’s a win-win – you get another grocery store downtown and everyone starts to love the Baby Kroger a lot more.
I recall a similar situation when in college. Drinking establishments couldn’t be located within “x” number of feet from a place of worship. Some enterprising young men wanted to open a pub just off campus…and a stone’s throw from the university chapel. I guess the loop hole they found specified something regarding the entrance into the establishment…so these guys measured the most distant point from the chapel door to the pub building….knocked a hole in the wall at said point and filled the hole with a door. And so was born $.05 drafts, stumbling distance to campus.
Bill Banks’ blurb in the AJC this morning mentioned that this development could include a parking deck for DHS.
With student parking permits running at least $30-$40/month, I hope.
Fine. Put another school on the site.
Why not? Build it and they will come. How’s that working out so far?
(Sarcasm not directed at you, LOL. At those who have succumbed to the vapors every time, before now, they had to think about traile— I mean, learning cottages.)