KIPS BAY — A group of residents and businesses is fighting back against efforts to open a 3,000-square-foot liquor store in Kips Bay.
The proposed store would be a booze-selling arm of the existing Morton Williams supermarket located on East 23rd Street and Second Avenue.
An attorney representing the grocer’s efforts to gain a liquor license said the store will sell mostly fine wines. But the shelves will be stocked with liquor too, and many in the neighborhood say another liquor store is the last thing they need.
Two of the closest alcohol vendors in the area hired an attorney, Charles Linn, to fight the store's liquor license application. The State Liquor Authority is scheduled to vote on the application on Wednesday.
Linn said the SLA will be mainly concerned with whether the new store would benefit the public interest by adding a convenience. But, he added, there are 20 liquor stores within 2,800 feet of Morton Williams’ proposed location, so the market is already saturated in that neighborhood.
“You really don’t need another store coming in to the area,” Linn said.
“This is all out of greed,” he added. “They just want to make money, so they don’t care what the ramifications are.”
Residents in the area say those ramifications would be serious.
Tenants at East Midtown Plaza, a Mitchell-Lama affordable housing co-op located in the same building as the supermarket and proposed liquor store, have a list of reasons why they believe the store will be bad for the neighborhood.
Those concerns are outlined in a memo that was distributed around the complex recently in an attempt to drum up support for their fight.
“Safety and quality of life here at East Midtown Plaza would be compromised as well as degraded if such an establishment were allowed to open,” the letter read.
The tenants worry about the proximity of several methadone clinics and the 850-bed men’s homeless shelter at Bellevue Hospital.
A new store in the immediate area would increase the likelihood that recovering addicts and the homeless will buy alcohol there and choose to drink it in the complex’s public plaza located on East 24th Street between First and Second avenues, said one resident who declined to be named.
People already drink in the plaza and sleep on its benches, she added. A liquor store right around the corner would only exacerbate the situation.
“The small liquor stores in the area, they refuse to sell to [the homeless]. They don’t even let them darken the door,” she said. “I think [Morton Williams] will be much more open to selling to anyone.”
In addition, there have been numerous complaints about garbage piling up behind supermarket, the resident said.
“That’s only going to get worse,” she said.
“We don’t need any more garbage,” she added.
A postscript at the end of the letter to tenants reads: “We need a P.C. Richards, Best Buy or even a Radio Shack for our neighborhood, not another liquor store.”
As part of efforts to squash the new liquor license application, attorney Charles Linn has gathered support from several stores in the neighborhood, and he submitted a petition to the SLA in advance of Wednesday’s hearing with 1,200 signatures from those opposed to the store.
Morton Williams, meanwhile, has its own petition, said Warren B. Pesetsky, the attorney representing the grocer.
“We have submitted 1,200 signatures of people who live in the area who said it would be a great convenience for them,” Pesetsky said.
“This is going to be a fine wine store,” he continued. “It’s not going to have any adverse effect on the neighborhood.”
Pesetsky said he was not aware of concerns in the neighborhood about the addition of a liquor store, and he dismissed arguments that a new retailer would attract a rough clientele.
“This is a convenience for the people that shop in the supermarket,” Pesetsky said.
“Makes sense to me as a consumer,” he added, “to be able to go right next door and buy a bottle of wine.”
