While the Santa Barbara Architectural Board of Review is focused on the aesthetic details of development projects around the city, a handful of people attended Monday night’s board meeting to voice opposition about the prospective occupant — Beverages & More Inc., commonly known as BevMo — at 3052 State St., formerly Thomasville Furniture.
The idea of a BevMo at that location, near nine smaller liquor stores and several supermarkets that sell alcohol, has drawn opposition from area shopkeepers and residents of the nearby San Roque and Samarkand neighborhoods.
BevMo filed an application last month with the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control for an off-sale liquor license for the location.
“It takes away from what people like me who have been in Santa Barbara 40 years came here for. This is a small town — we don’t want to be L.A.,” Samarkand resident Trudy Fernandez said Monday.
With Peabody Charter School and MacKenzie Park located nearby, residents say they’re worried that having a huge liquor store in the area — the size of which many equate to Costco and other big-box stores — would attract unsavory visitors to the neighborhood and impact the area’s parking and traffic patterns.
Another concern raised Monday night by some of the 10 or so citizens in attendance was that having a chain store in the neighborhood would kill small business.
“These guys have 100 stores in California and they’re moving into Arizona,” said Katie Turner, who lives near La Cumbre Plaza. “We don’t want them here.”
Only two members of the public who showed up Monday chose to speak. Members of the ABR said that although public comment was appreciated, they were there to examine the proposed project’s aesthetic details — with land use out of the board’s scope.
“Any questions on use should be directed to ABC or the police department,” said Michelle Bedard, a City planning specialist who moderated the meeting.
While most kept their comments to themselves and a cadre of reporters assembled outside the room, Turner and Jerry Vigil — the development’s most vocal opponent — took an opportunity to comment on the plans and elevations that had been presented to the board by BevMo’s construction team.
BevMo’s construction superintendent said that while the company planned to use most of the existing Thomasville building, a big chunk of its rear section would be razed to accommodate delivery trucks and a few extra parking spaces — according to the plan, there would be up to 35 parking spaces on site. Currently, the back wall of the building is directly adjacent to a narrow alley, causing concern among neighbors that delivery trucks would cause congestion and safety problems.
Most of the comments from board members were directed at saving trees and making the State Street elevation of the building more pedestrian friendly. As it stands, there is no pedestrian access from the street, and customers arriving on foot have to traverse the parking lot to enter the store.
“As an Architectural Review Board, we don’t control what’s inside, but there’s a tie-in between what’s inside and the street,” said Paul Zink, noting that passers-by would see into the building through its large front windows. “Here in Santa Barbara, we like to window shop.”
All of the board members took issue with BevMo’s plan to remove a tree from the parking lot.
“Trees are a community asset, and these trees are already of substantial growth,” member Keith Rivera said. “Removal of trees isn’t what we’re about.”
The board voted to continue the review indefinitely, asking BevMo to provide more information about demolition plans and the building’s decorative details.
For Vigil and his fellow concerned neighbors, they said they’re determined to take their issues to the ABC and later, bring it to the attention of the Santa Barbara City Council, although Bedard clarified that ABR’s is the only discretionary review required by the city for BevMo’s project.
“They’re not building something everybody doesn’t have,” said Sarkis Abdulhi, who has owned San Roque Liquor for the past 15 years. “How can a politician say they support small business when they bring in giant chains? How many employees are they going to have, 13? What good does that do anybody when they put nine or 10 small shops out of business?”
— Noozhawk staff writer Ben Preston can be reached at bpreston@noozhawk.com.