Published: June 25, 2008 10:08 am      

City OKs liquor sales on gas station site

DANVILLE — A liquor store received approval from the city to open adjacent to the Mach 1 Food Shop at Gilbert and Williams streets in the former Blimpie’s part of the building.

Mayor Scott Eisenhauer, city liquor commissioner, sought the advice of Corp. Counsel Pat Wolgamot whether a Class P package liquor license could be issued to a package liquor store that’s in a separate building but sharing a common wall with a gas station/convenience store.

City code states “no alcoholic beverage shall be sold, served or consumed at any business categorized as a gasoline station or convenient store.”

However, Wolgamot said the liquor store shares the same real estate, 510 N. Gilbert St., but there will be a separate entrance and customers won’t have access from one store to the other except by exiting and entering each.

Also, there is city precedent. Danville Liquors, 1816 E. Main St., holds a Class P liquor license for a location it shares with a convenience store, in which each has its own separate entrance and shares a common wall.

Wolgamot sees no substantive difference between the two circumstances.

“Therefore, it would be discriminatory to deprive the newer store of the benefits of a liquor license while permitting it at the older store,” Wolgamot said.

Eisenhauer said it doesn’t matter if the gas station property owners also own or manage the liquor store.

“It is not a convenience store or gas station,” he said. “There’s no public movement (between the two). They are separate entities.”

He added this was the only open Class P liquor license in the city, due to the closing of National Liquors, which also was on Main Street.