Hey, there! Log in / Register
Roslindale Square convenience store gets OK to add beer and wine
By adamg on Thu, 09/14/2023 - 12:28pm
The Boston Licensing Board today gave Lina Ghantous permission to start selling beer and wine at her Welcome Buddy convenience store at 4196 Washington St. in Roslindale.
At a hearing Wednesday, Ghantous's lawyer said she had gotten "numerous and frequent requests" from customers to add beer and wine to her offerings. She said she would add two beer coolers and use two shelves for wine, or about 10% of her store's floor space.
Nobody spoke against the proposal.
The board did set one condition on her license: That Ghantous notify the board in the future if she wants to expand the percentage of space in the store set aside for alcohol.
Board Chairwoman Kathleen Joyce said she had no problem with the request, but proposed the condition so that "they stay true to the floor plan and don't expand (alcohol space) without coming back to the board."
Neighborhoods:
Topics:
Free tagging:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
Every now and then
Every now and then I’m in. 7-11, or other convenience store in some random state and see they sell beer and wine (and sometimes booze). And the place isn’t full of teens. And the world doesn’t end. It’s interesting.
I agee, to a point
I grew up in New York state, where CVS sells beer and it's all fine.
On the other hand, when these small places get a beer and wine license, they have a tendency to slowly morph into JUST a beer and wine store. Exhibit A is the place at the corner of Belgrade and Walworth in Roslindale. It went from a normal corner bodega to adding beer and wine (and garish full-window pictures of beer bottles) and now I see that they have added liquor to the sign and I doubt if they even sell bread and milk anymore.
Point being?
Hang on. So you may or may not have been a customer before and you certainly haven’t been in lately (to buy anything or run a bread-n-milk inspection) but you object to the way they run their business. Maybe they gave up selling bread and milk because the bread-n-milk snobs wouldn’t support them, and they’re better off serving the loyal lushes.
EDIT: To a broader point that has nothing at all to do with you, dear Gary, this is why the food in Boston generally sucks. Because a bunch of NIMBYs run a stupid faux-puritanical system denies restaurants and stores the ability to sell alcohol, denying innovative and disruptive restaurants the ability to compete and make money, and leaving a us with few well-heeled and disgustingly bland restaurants in an uncompetitive and depressingly boring market. (This is also the home of the New England Boiled Dinner, so the locals’ tastes also take some of the blame.)
Responding to both
Yes, I object to how the store looks from the street. It's garish. I honestly wouldn't have probably even noticed them if they hadn't been so "in your face" with their signage.
I don't think they made much of an attempt to be an actual bodega; I think they have always had, "We're going to be a liquor store" as their plan. The place across the intersection that DOES sell bread and milk also sells beer (they have a sign with "Bud Man", that suggests they were selling beer decades ago.)
With regard to your statement about the antiquated liquor license system: I couldn't agree more!
Maybe, just maybe...
they've shifted their sales to beer/wine/liquor because they're catty-corner to another long-established milk-and-bread-selling convenience store?
I've never been in either store (despite living about 1/2 mile away) so I have no idea if one was much better than the other, but it would be hard for two similar stores to survive in such close proximity. So one changed.
Next thing
you'll be telling me that some states manage to host roadwork and public works projects without having to hire a cop to stand around and look at their phones and occasionally talk to the construction workers