Tuesday, May 4, 2010

NIc Nak Liquors coming to City Council Tonight

As a reminder, the Nic Nak Liquor Store is coming to the City Council tonight on Appeal. The matter will be heard at 6:30 pm at 1 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, 3rd Floor, Oakland. City Council Agenda (page 8 of 12). You can also access the staff report here Staff Report.

This may prove to be an interesting public hearing. The owners of the Nic Nak, the Pannell's, have circulated fliers in the adjacent neighborhood requesting support for "Your Neighborhood Merchant", but failed to note the issue is related to alcohol sales, not the convenience store sales. They are even offering free rides to the meeting for their supporters in a classic election day get out the vote maneuver. This is important since the Pannell's and the bulk of their supporters do not even live in North Oakland. Whether they intend to use the same tactics employed at the Planning Commission Meeting is another question. The City Council may not have the patience for such theatrics.

Approval of alcohol sales at 6400 Shattuck under the rationale of "historical prevalence" will gut the deemed approved status for non-conforming alcohol outlets and will allow such a rationale to be used anytime anyone wants a variance. This will open the gates to unwanted land uses throughout Oakland and has to the potential to significantly affect the quality of life for residents in neighborhoods throughout the City.

1 comment:

ralph said...

Oakland needs to admit that they have a race problem. Far to often, our decision makers are afraid of making a decision against a black applicant/owner for fear of being called racist. They bend over backwards to find ways to approve/support a black owned business where they would not support a white owned business. I suspect they do this out of fear of being called racist, and we must be honest there are no shortage of people who said as much at council. Our decision leaders must stop trying to applying their own civil rights remedies and follow the law and do what is right for the greater community.