GREAT BARRINGTON — The Price Chopper on Stockbridge Road is about to undergo a fancy rebranding that the company’s owner plans to complete by the end of October. But there is a wrinkle: as part of the remodeling, the company wants permission to include an aisle featuring beer and wine.
Representing Price Chopper, Boston attorney Eugene R. Richard presented the company’s plans to the selectboard last night. He explained that the company wants to rebrand the store as a Market 32 and expand into two adjacent storefronts.
The current store encompasses some 46,000 square feet and, with the addition of the two vacant storefronts, would expand to nearly 50,000 square feet. The new aisle containing the beer and wine would comprise slightly more than 1,900 square feet of the footprint of the expanded space.
See Edge video below of last night’s Great Barrington Selectboard meeting. The discussion about the Price Chopper expansion begins at 10:40:
In addition to the beer and wine, the conversion to a Market 32 includes expansion of the prepared foods, specialty cheeses, meat, seafood and bakery departments. The new Market 32 name reflects the changing nature of the retail grocery business and is an attempt to move away from Price Chopper’s image as a discount retailer, as its old name suggests, toward that of an upscale grocer, company executives said in 2014 when the rebranding was announced.
“This will create a one-stop shopping experience,” Richard said. Click here to see his presentation, which includes a schematic drawing of the proposed new store’s layout on page four.
The remodeling is scheduled to begin on June 6, with completion expected by the end of October. A grand reopening is scheduled for November 8. The store will remain open throughout the construction and will continue to operate during its current hours of 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.
But the granting of a beer-and-wine license did not sit well with a couple of selectmen who thought members of the sober community might be unnecessarily tempted by the alcoholic offerings. Board member Eric Gabriel noted that Price Chopper is currently the only grocery store in the town of Great Barrington that does not sell alcoholic beverages.
“I’m uncomfortable with every grocery store in Great Barrington having a package store or beer and wine in it,” Gabriel said. “We have many residents [for whom] the temptations are too great … and this would give them no options to go shopping without the temptation of buying beer or wine. I think we owe it to our residents to keep one of our grocery stores alcohol-free.”
The town’s other grocery stores are allowed to sell alcohol in one form or another: Big Y; Guido’s; the Berkshire Co-op Market; and Gorham & Norton. Both Big Y and Gorham & Norton have so-called “all-alcohol” licenses, which means they can sell not only beer and wine, but hard liquor as well. Rubiner’s, a cheese store on Main Street, also sells “natural wines.” Richard said this puts Price Chopper at a disadvantage.
“Meeting the competition is very important in the grocery business, and one reason my client really wants and has gone for this license is that Big Y is presently licensed,” Richard explained. “That’s a real competitive disadvantage.”
In addition to the single aisle in the middle of the store, Price Chopper is also asking permission to set up so-called satellite displays, small displays throughout the store that feature alcoholic beverages that are on sale or new to the store. That did not sit well with board member Leigh Davis, who noted that Big Y has many such displays after suggesting to town officials that they would not do so.
“I remember at that time, I expressed concern about periodic displays and verbally was assured that pretty much everything would stay in the beer-and-wine aisle to keep alcohol from spilling out into the food aisle,” Davis said. “That has not happened.”
“I can see how it’s convenient, but when you’re shopping with kids or you’re trying to abstain from alcohol, having alcohol in your food aisles or popping up when you’re trying to get candy, I feel that might be something we might want to discuss restricting as a board,” Davis continued.
Richard emphasized that Price Chopper has several other similarly licensed stores in Massachusetts, including a pair in Pittsfield and in Lenox, and there have been no complaints. Everyone who buys alcohol — even senior citizens — is required to produce proof of age, even in the self-serve checkout lines. All managers and cashiers are TIPS trained.
Former town Finance Committee member Michelle Loubert suggested a double standard and scoffed at the notion that another alcohol retailer would be too much of a temptation for teetotalers.
“If we’re talking about not tempting people, then perhaps our grocery stores should get out of the lottery ticket business because gambling is just as serious an addiction,” Loubert said, and, referring to Theory Wellness, adding, “I’m a little taken aback by the hypocrisy here. Right next door is a pot shop. It seems like every 10 feet we have a marijuana shop, so let’s be real here.”
Board member Ed Abrahams said the number of cannabis retailers was decided at town meeting. In other words, they were “legislative decisions” made by citizens. The selectboard itself does not have the authority to limit the number of cannabis stores.
“We don’t control how many pot shops there are,” Abrahams said.”We do have control over the liquor licenses.”
Davis said she would be inclined to approve Price Chopper’s beer-and-wine license without the satellite display, but Bannon suggested continuing the public hearing until the board’s next meeting on May 23.
“Let’s put it off for two weeks,” Bannon said. “Maybe I will visit the Lenox store.”
Board member Garfield Reed recused himself from involvement in Price Chopper’s application, presumably because he works for Plaza Package, a liquor store on State Road.
The Schenectady, New York-based Price Chopper, a division of the Golub Corporation, operates nearly 300 Price Chopper, Market 32, Market Bistro, and Tops Markets stores, employing more than 30,000 people. Last year the company acquired Tops, nearly doubling the collective footprint of the two chains, which own stores in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont, and Pennsylvania.
