Community organizing around the construction of a new Circle K at Seventh and Roosevelt streets is climbing higher, and its peak will be Wednesday’s city council meeting to advise the approval or disapproval of a liquor license for the proposed Circle K.
According to city officials, if the liquor license is denied, the business has indicated it will not carry out construction of the proposed 16-pump station at the southeast corner of the intersection.
Wednesday’s meeting is not the deciding factor of whether the liquor license is granted. The city council’s recommendation will be passed on to the Arizona State Liquor Board, which has the power to grant the business its liquor license.
Supporters, opponents circulate petitions
Two petitions were started this month, one for supporters of the new store and one for the opponents. Community members from surrounding areas, such as the Garfield and Evans Churchill neighborhoods, have voiced their opposition at many meetings already.
Circle K hired a public relations firm, Mario E. Diaz and Associates, to rally up some support for the store. The firm’s solution was Friends of Circle K, a group that has been canvassing neighborhoods near the intersection to collect signatures in support of the new store. Mario Diaz, the firm’s owner, said more than 300 Garfield residents have signed the canvassers’ cards to show their support.
“The organization was created so residents who don’t have time to participate in community organizations can have a voice and express their opinion,” Diaz said.
He estimated about 120 supporters expressed interest in attending Wednesday’s meeting. Diaz said Circle K plans to provide dinner and transportation to the meeting for its supporters.
Diaz’s firm was a campaign consultant for Vice Mayor Michael Johnson in the last two election cycles.
Community advocate Sean Sweat, who heads the Thunderdome Association for Non-Auto Mobility, began an online petition to oppose the new store.
“The petition is something the council can respond to directly,” Sweat said.
He said the website actually sends each council member an email every time someone signs. The petition had 300 supporters as of Sunday night.
Garfield neighborhood resident Charlie Dill said he was approached by a Friends of Circle K canvasser, whom he told he adamantly opposed the new store, citing trash as a major reason.
“This isn’t just a throwaway neighborhood,” Dill said. “We have a stake in it.”
Dill said he worries the canvassers may be obtaining many signatures from renters in the area who don’t have a long-term commitment to the neighborhood.
A suburban business in an urban district
Some opponents of the new store say it just doesn’t fit the type of neighborhood the Roosevelt district has become.
Wayne Rainey, the owner of the MonOrchid art gallery at Roosevelt and Second streets, said the store is too suburban. A business owner himself, Rainey said he is almost never anti-business, but that “now is the time to be choosy.”
“It’s a horrifically bad idea to put a suburban-model business in an urban neighborhood that we’ve been working to create for almost 20 years,” Rainey said.
He said small aesthetic changes can have drastic affects, pointing to a time when he noticed he lost tenants at his gallery simply because he added a soda machine in the entryway.
“That intersection is the main thoroughfare into the Roosevelt arts district,” Rainey said. “Having a large gas station will leave visitors confused, asking ‘What is this neighborhood about?’”
Sweat said a street-facing, urban-concept business would fit the neighborhood better.
“We have to create an environment different from the suburbs,” Sweat said.
Circle K did not comment on its efforts to address these concerns about its business model, instead redirecting media inquiries to Diaz’s firm. The Friends of Circle K website says the new Circle K will have updated architecture to “enhance the look and feel” of the intersection.
“That intersection is one of the gateways into downtown Phoenix,” Diaz said. “We can either keep the old store or have something new.”
Community concerns tied to alcohol
Major concerns of opponents of the new Circle K, which places the issue of its liquor license at the forefront of the debate, are alcohol-related issues. This encompasses the littering of alcohol containers in the nearby area, as well as alcohol-related crimes such as beer-runs, according to Tim Eigo, chair of the Downtown Voices Coalition.
“They’re a bad applicant at the wrong location with the wrong product,” Eigo said.
Eigo said the intersection’s current Circle K, which is located directly across Roosevelt Street from the new store’s proposed location, has “been a bad neighbor for years.”
“From where we sit at Downtown Voices, it is rewarding bad behavior,” Eigo said. “They’re excellent at promising how they’re going to do better, as long as they’re given this brand-new, shiny thing.”
To address these concerns, Circle K changed their application from a series 9 liquor license, which would have allowed the store to sell hard alcohol, to a series 10 license, which would only allow them to sell beer and wine.
Community concerns have also been taken into account by the city of Phoenix. According to Elizabeth Parker, deputy city clerk for the city, the staff recommendation to the city council is to disapprove the license application “based on neighborhood protests.” She said the council will take this, as well as what is said by attendees at Wednesday’s meeting, into account before voting.
The meeting agenda includes data that show there are currently 101 businesses within a one-mile radius of the proposed Circle K that hold liquor licenses. Of these, 11 are liquor or beer and wine stores.
A public meeting was held in mid-November for the community to discuss the proposed Circle K with Johnson, who mentioned that the Shell at the same intersection did not receive a liquor license when it applied.
“I think that out of all fairness, we can’t do something for one business that we don’t do for another business,” Johnson said at the meeting.
Johnson did not indicate how he plans to vote at the meeting, saying he must weigh the pros and cons.
Eigo said he hopes the city council considers the work that Roosevelt community members have put into the neighborhood.
“When you think about who should be rewarded, I think it’s Roosevelt Row and the businesses that are along there,” Eigo said.
The council will vote on the liquor license recommendation Wednesday at 5 p.m. in the City Council Chambers in City Hall.
Contact the reporter at ascline1@asu.edu
