Town Square Super Fresh Won't Be Selling Booze
Apr 15, 2009 8:00 - 6 Comments
As many >Rockville Central readers know, we’ve been tapping our feet waiting for one of the cornerstones of Town Square to open: the Super Fresh grocery store at the corner of Beall Ave. and N. Washington.
The state legislature dealt the A&P-owned chain a setback by refusing it an exception that would have allowed the grocery store to sell beer and wine on the premises.
Says the Gazette:
Super Fresh will not be selling beer and wine in its Rockville Town Square grocery store when it opens this year.
The state bill that would have allowed a special exception for the grocery store to sell beer and wine did not make it out of a House of Delegates subcommittee by the end of the legislative session on Monday.
Mayor Susan R. Hoffmann expressed disappointment:
“We’re very disappointed that the liquor industry in the state continues to have the stranglehold on the Maryland legislature. . . . We received opposition from groups outside the city and even outside the county … those wholesalers don’t do business in the county and yet they came and testified in opposition.”
No word yet from A&P or Super Fresh on their response, although one option is to open a third-party beer and wine store next door.
I really don’t get our county and state liquor laws. Seriously.>
In my opinion, all supermarkets should have the option to sell beer and wine. What a waste of tax payer dollars to petition the state assembly each year for this “privilege”.
I agree!
It makes no sense!
I would not be surprised if Super Fresh pulled the plug on the store. I can’t blame them if they did.
Super Fresh should have opened well over a year ago and sold us FOOD! That was the deal. They may have continued to pay the rent but without opening in a timely fashion they have deprived Town Center of much-needed consumer traffic. At this point, we won’t miss them at all.
That was a close one — the General Assembly almost did something that would add convenience and choice to our lives. The county liquor laws are nonsense. As a Town Square resident, I am disappointed to see this state bill did not pass.