Great Barrington — During its meeting on Monday, December 4, the Selectboard approved the liquor license for the town’s Price Chopper store at 300 Stockbridge Road. The vote was three to one, with Chair Stephen Bannon, Vice Chair Leigh Davis, and member Ben Elliott voting to grant the liquor license, with member Eric Gabriel voting against granting the license. Selectboard member Garfield Reed recused himself from the vote, as he did for the two previous votes, because he is an employee of the Plaza Package Store on State Road.
This was the third time the company applied for a liquor license from the town.
During the public hearing about the license, a large majority of residents spoke in favor of the company obtaining the license.
The company first presented its plans to the Selectboard on May 11, 2022, but the Selectboard rejected the application a few weeks later. On February 27 of this year, the company applied for a liquor license for a second time, and was once again rejected by the Selectboard. In late November the company applied for a third time for the town’s last malt and wine license. The details of the application remained the same for all three attempts, with the store proposing a new aisle of 1,900 for beer and wine.
At the Selectboard meeting in February, Price Chopper Company President Blaine Bringhurst said the addition of the aisle would be part of a store renovation which would add 8,000 square feet to the building, with the store rebranded as a Market 32. Bringhurst said that the company would invest $4 million into the store’s expansion.
At the beginning of the public hearing over the license, Tyler Sterling, vice president of real estate with Price Chopper/Market 32, said that the company appealed the Selectboard’s previous decision to the State Superior Court, and at the time of the December 4 public hearing, the appeal was still pending. “We operate 15 stores in the state, and eight of those stores have liquor licenses,” Sterling said. “We take our rights where we are granted to sell liquor in our stores very seriously. We have a full-time license compliance manager in our corporate office to make sure that we have the right practices in place to do so efficiently and safely and in accordance with all of the state regulations.”
Sterling said that the company has been persistent in obtaining the license because it is critical to the store’s continued operations. “Our ability to make this investment relies upon what we think is our ability to be on an equal playing field with our competitors in this market,” Sterling said. “It’s difficult for us to justify making a multi-million-dollar investment when we understand that, at the end of that multi-million-dollar investment, we will still be at a bit of a competitive disadvantage and not be able to offer the same goods and services that our competitors in the [town] are able to offer.”
Sterling went on to explain the process the store would use for alcohol sales, and, later on, spoke about how the store would deal with shoplifters. “We can leverage the use of ID scanners, which essentially takes the human error out of reading IDs, used to scan the barcode on the back [of IDs],” Sterling said. “[As for shoplifting], our teammate’s safety and our customer’s safety is paramount, which is why we take a passive approach to shoplifting. We have fabulous teammates who work in grocery stores, and they’re not loss-prevention experts, nor are they officers of the law. They are instructed on those types of [shoplifting] instances [that we use] passive non-intervention. We contact loss prevention and we contact the authorities, because they’re the experts to run with it. It’s not worth having an associate put themselves in harm’s way for $10 [worth of liquor].”
Public comments
During the public comments portion of the hearing, a majority of the comments asking the Selectboard to reject the application came from local business owners and employees of businesses, including Vrushank Patel, manager of the Shell gas station at 229 Stockbridge Road. “[If the license is granted], kids will be able to access alcohol easier, as it is a larger location,” Patel said. “Teenagers can be shoplifting alcoholic beverages because it is the supermarket, even though they have a larger staff. With a larger location, it is easier to shoplift using backpacks. Another problem would be people drinking in the parking lot because the plaza has a larger parking lot, so people can just purchase alcoholic beverages and then consume them in their vehicles.”
Ed Domaney, owner of Domaney’s Liquors and Fine Wines, spoke strongly against Price Chopper being granted a license. “The reason why we don’t have licenses everywhere [in the area] is because liquor has to be regulated, and we need regulations in our life,” Domaney said. “This business of ours has been in our family for many years. We worked really hard and paid off the [liquor] license after many years of agony, agonizingly long hours, and working the best we could for our community.”
Domaney said that both Big Y and Domaney’s Liquors and Fine Wines had to purchase their liquor licenses. “We didn’t just get it handed to us, so that’s why this feels like a slap in the face to us,” Domaney said. “How would you feel if you just bought a store and all of a sudden, a mile down the road, someone’s getting [a liquor license] just handed to them? That just doesn’t sit right. Price Chopper can make a great supermarket without alcohol. These licenses are a special class of licenses that were given to towns for small businesses like farm stands, attached farms, and gourmet stores, including places like the [Berkshire Food] Co-op, a store that was designed for the people and owned by the people. That’s what this license was designed for, not for wealthy corporations. Small businesses have made Great Barrington what it is over the years.”
Taft Farms owner Paul Tawczynski told the board that, right after the Selectboard rejected Price Chopper’s liquor license for a second time in February, last spring, he applied to the town to obtain the license. Tawczynski told the board that, as of the December 5 meeting, he is still on the waiting list for the license. “As [Domaney] pointed out, these licenses were designed for small businesses like mom-and-pop stores, they weren’t designed for mega-corporations,” Tawczynski said. “[The license should go] to Taft Farms or any of the other small businesses in Great Barrington where you actually see tangible community support. Obviously, I would love it to be for my store. It would have an immediate impact on our short- and long-term viability to be able to put in locally crafted ciders, organic wines, organic beverages, and things like that.”
Resident Joanne Sheron was one of the many residents who spoke in favor of the town granting the license. “Give Price Chopper what they are asking for if they’re willing to invest their own money into upgrading a grocery store,” Sheron said. “For Great Barrington, that is a very positive thing all the way around. Everybody uses a grocery store, and it is definitely needed.”
“I don’t see what the big deal is of approving this for Price Chopper,” resident Elizabeth Rockefeller said in support of granting the liquor license. “If kids are going to shoplift anywhere, they’re going to shoplift in liquor stores or in other locations in town.”
Resident Donna Jacobs said she is in favor of granting the liquor license because of the potential upgrades to the store. “I think we are overemphasizing the problems with liquor,” Jacobs told the Selectboard. “What we really need is a first-class supermarket on the north side of town. I drive to the Big Y on the south side of town because it’s a more pleasant place to shop. I don’t buy their liquor there, I stop at Domaney’s Liquors on the way home. I don’t think liquor is really what matters here. We really need a first-class market, and I think not having that is to neglect the real estate on the north end of town. Great Barrington is growing, and I think we need to allow the businesses to grow with the town.”
Selectboard decision
Selectboard member Elliott was elected to the board in May and was, therefore, not on the board when it made its previous two decisions on the liquor application. Elliott voted in favor of granting the liquor license, but not before criticizing the company. “You know, when the store opened 27 years ago, I was just a kid,” Elliott said. “To be honest with you, the store looks exactly the same as when I was a kid, with most of the same product offerings.”
Back in May 2022, Selectboard Vice Chair Davis voted to approve granting the liquor license, but back in February, she abstained from the second vote on the matter. At the December 4 meeting, Davis said she regretted her previous vote to abstain and proceeded to vote to grant Price Chopper the license. “While my [previous] vote would not have changed the outcome [of the February meeting], my decision weighed heavily on me, and I regretted my decision to abstain,” Davis said. “As I said in my letter to the editor in the local papers following the vote, [I have taken] my role as a public servant seriously, and have embraced the lessons learned [from the previous vote]. So it is with these lessons learned, and after thoughtful consideration, that I will be voting tonight as I did at the first hearing, to approve Price Chopper’s application to sell beer and wine. It is possible to support small businesses while also supporting the wider community’s needs. We are blessed with many quality local full-service shops selling beer and wine, and I’m confident that we will continue to support them. Price Chopper has indicated an interest in renovating and expanding its store. The north side of Great Barrington deserves to have a first rate market, and I’m sure the residents of Housatonic would be happy to avoid driving across town to shop.”
Just like he did for the previous two votes, Selectboard member Gabriel voted against granting the company the liquor license. “At our first meeting [about the license], I was advised that we can’t take competition or competitors into consideration, but here we are with a giant corporation asking us to do just that in order to level the playing field for them,” Gabriel said. “I feel that, first and foremost, that we’re here to protect small businesses. That’s why I feel that I sit on the board. I want this board to understand that a ‘yes’ vote could very possibly mean the reduction of 30 to 40 percent of sales for our smaller stores. Sure, lots of people say they won’t buy their beer and wine [at Price Chopper], but let’s be honest, the bulk of the [liquor] sales will move to Price Chopper after this renovation. That’s why the corporation keeps spending so much on lawyers and why [the previous decisions] have been appealed. I believe that the corporation will renovate the building with or without the license and that no one drives across town to buy all their groceries, beer, and wine all in one place.”
“I don’t disagree with any of the points [Gabriel] made or what we are hearing from the local stores, that doesn’t feel great,” Elliott said. “I live five minutes from your store, but I don’t really shop [at Price Chopper] because I don’t feel you are really invested in the store. But, I do recognize that you are not only the anchor business for the shopping plaza, but also the whole north end of Great Barrington. I really think that the whole strip [of stores] depends on having a strong anchor store like Price Chopper.”
“This is difficult because I want to protect small businesses, and at one point I used to own a small business,” Chair Bannon said before he voted to approve the liquor license. “But Price Chopper employs a lot of people in town. I never looked at them as making a threat [to cut back employees and operating hours if the license was not granted]. I always thought they were obviously talking about a business plan because it fits their business. Let’s face it, they are a big business. If they close, they will close, and it will become a huge problem because we will have a lot of people unemployed. [Elliott] is right, the store has deteriorated. It should have been remodeled 10 years ago. I think calling them out on this is important because if they remodel, they need to continue to keep this up.”
In an email to The Berkshire Edge, company spokesperson Mona Golub wrote that the store expects to sell liquor by the next holiday season.
