Park View, D.C.

3830 Georgia Avenue NW — future home of the Petworth Safeway.

Nearly a year ago, there was a discussion on the Petworth listserv on whether or not the new Petworth Safeway should be able to sell beer and wine. In 1999, the D.C. Council imposed a citywide moratorium on new Class B licenses – which allow beer and wine sales – to discourage loitering and public drunkenness. The council later carved out an exemption, but only for new “full-service grocery stores,” or those undergoing “substantial” renovation – requirements this Safeway would seem to meet. The problem for the new safeway, however, is that another, more recent, moratorium restricts Class B licenses in nearly all of Ward 4. The moratorium does not include the exemption for grocery stores. So, absent Council action the Petworth Safeway would not be allowed to sell beer and wine. In April 2013, when I polled readers about this, there was overwhelming support for the new Safeway to sell beer and wine.

Last week, Petworth resident Joe Martin provided an encouraging follow up on the Petworth listserv to last year’s discussion. According to Martin, last week the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board gave the new Petworth Safeway a green light to proceed with its beer-and-wine license application. Martin’s posting continued:

There had been some delay in the process while the Safeway corporation satisfied the Board’s administrative questions over the past few months, i.e. provision of architectural plans and meeting the legal definition of a grocery store.

Craig Muckle from Safeway’s public relations division appeared before ANC 4C [on March 12th … and] stated that the Petworth Safeway plans to open in three-to-four months and that the store can open even while construction continues above it, having done so in other development projects.

Muckle noted that the Safeway will open an office in Petworth in advance of the store opening for the purpose of accepting job applications and interviewing qualified applicants. He stated Safeway hopes to hire a considerable number of area residents and that employees of the previous Safeway will be considered for positions with the new Petworth Safeway. Muckle stated that the new Safeway will create over 200 jobs at the Petworth location.

Placards will soon appear on the building announcing the date for an ABC Board hearing on the beer-and-wine license application for a Retailer B license, #93822. The Retailer B classification permits grocery stores and wholesalers to sell beer and wine.

Once ABRA posts the application placards I’ll post additional details for residents who want to express support or opposition to this license.

This entry was posted on March 18, 2014 at 7:01 am and is filed under ABRA, Development, Grocery Stores, Housing. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: Development, Georgia Avenue corridor, grocery stores, Petworth