Liquor Store Planned For Former Florist Denied License

After a hearing Monday afternoon that lasted nearly two hours, the Baltimore County Liquor Board decided not to approve a new license for a liquor store planned for Harford Road.

If granted the new license would have allowed Aashi Kaur to operate a liquor store at 9502 Harford Road.

Ultimately the board decided not to approve the license because the store, planned for the former location of Beverly Hochstedt Florist, failed to meet several of the board's criteria, according to liquor board chairman Charles Klein.

County law requires that the liquor board consider the public need and desire for a license, as well as the number and location of existing businesses that sell liquor and the potential effect a new license would have on existing licensees.

A coalition of area residents, community leaders, business owners and employees turned out to oppose the new license. Their outcry was joined by letters of opposition from elected officials including Sen. Kathy Klausmeier, Dels. Joe Boteler and Eric Bromwell, and Councilman David Marks.

Charles Klein, chairman of the liquor board, denied the new license but said that Kaur was welcome to reapply for another location within the election district.

"We furthermore—we do find Ms. Aashi Kaurr to be a qualified applicant," Klein said. "Please, apply for another location within the election district."

Testifying as an expert witness, Dr. Gerald Patnode, a consultant hired by the applicant, told the board that a market study he conducted demonstrated the need for a new liquor license in the area.

"When you look at the demand for alcoholic beverage versus the supply of alcoholic beverage [within a one mile radius of the proposed store we have a retail gap of 1,193,000 dollars," Patnode said.

However, Patnode, the dean of the school of business at York College, did concede that within a 3 mile radius of the store the "retail gap" disappears entirely and that his study did not consider package goods sales from area bars.

Harry Cohen, owner of the and president of the Baltimore County Licensed Beverage Association, gave testimony protesting the new license.

"Just because this license is available through the whole district we don’t know that it’s prudent to put it in an area with a saturation," Cohen said. "I welcome it somewhere, but it has to be somewhere else."

The board heard form Cohen that a new liquor store would "absolutely" hurt his business and that if Dr. Patnode had considered package goods sales in his study he would have found that the "million-and-a-half dollar gap" is made up by sales from the Firehouse Tavern alone.

Cohen, who also serves on the board of the Maryland Licensed Beverage Association, was far from the only representative of a local business to testify against the new license: Harry Mehta of the , Ashish Pariq of the , and William Bobo of also spoke out.

In addition, the board heard testimony from Ruth Baisden of the Greater Parkville Community Council, Meg O'Hare of the Carney Improvement Association, and several members of the community who live near the proposed store.

"The community is uniting, we don’t want it. We don’t feel there is a need to accommodate the residents," Baisden told the board.

O'Hare told the board that from a "commonsense viewpoint" the community was well served by established retailers, including , the , the , Harford Beverage Company, , and others.

"We don’t need another liquor store in our area, what we have is serving the community quite well," O'Hare said.

In addition she said the proposed store was particularly offensive to the Carney Improvement Association because of it's location across the street from the public library branch; although, she conceded there is no rule against such a thing.

Kaur, for her part, submitted a petition of nearly 100 signatures in support of her proposed store and at least two Carney residents and an additional 10 citizens of Baltimore County turned out to support her.

However, the community outcry proved much louder—Harry Cohen submitted petitions with a total of 576 signatures opposing a new license in the area, and at least fourteen neighborhood residents, community leaders and business owners turned out in protest.