Why You So Winey?

For time immemorial, New York City neighborhoods have been battling it out over the rights of businesses to sell liquor vs. the local residents' quality of life concerns. Back in the day, I guarantee there was some gaggle of cockamamie Temperance chicks repeatedly flapping their gums down on the Brooklyn docks about the ills of liquor.

These days, the Lower East Side & Meatpacking Districts are constant battlegrounds between drunkard-catering businesses & puke-hating residents. OBVIOUSLY, every time another business is granted a license to sell alcohol, we all get a little bit closer to hellfire & brimstone. Enough is enough.

In Park Slope, ever since vanquishing the nuisance, bottle-poppin' club that would've been Kemistry Lounge, we've turned our attentions toward the real threat--boutique wine & spirit shops. Late last month, the State Liquor Authority refused to grant a retail liquor license to Amaro Wine & Spirits, one such business that's trying to open up in the former Lucia space on 5th Ave between 1st & Garfield. The reason for the SLA's denial? Last-minute opposition by two nearby wine stores apparently worried about competition.

The deal with Amaro Wine & Spirits is that they plan on being a small store that focuses on specialty wines & spirits, mainly small-producer wines, aperitifs (pre-meal drinks for appetite) & digestifs (post-meal drinks for digestion). With an extensive selection of the pre- & post-meal liquors, they hope to spread the European concept of consuming herbal spirits as a key part of your meal. This emphasis will extend to the importance of pairing wines & spirits with a meal.

About a week back, I got to have a brief chat with Steve Fromhart, who co-owns the business with his wife Valerie Vadala. Steve's apparently nuts, because he's basically quit his job to open the store. That's ballsy & whatnot, but if we've learned anything from twenty-five seasons of Homer Simpson, it's that you should never follow your dreams. He seems like a good dude & all, a ten-year Park Slope resident, father of two, all that respectable junk. It helps that he also seems to be passionate & knowledgeable as far as wine & spirits go. Maybe it was the few beers I consumed during our talk, but it sounds like he's got a worthy concept or something.

So, which two wine stores acted like little bitches & opposed Amaro's application? Steve wouldn't reveal the name of either to me, but he did confirm that one of them was not my namesake store Shawn Fine Wine & Spirits. I'm fairly certain one of the two is Picada y Vino. It just HAS to be. They only sell wine & it's one of the two closest wine stores to Amaro's proposed location. Plus I heard there was a rumor on the internet that they were one of them. The closest shop is Red, White & Bubbly, but there's also Brooklyn Barrel down on 4th, Sterling Grapes & Grains down 5th Ave toward Flatbush, and a few others in the area. It could be ANY OF THEM!!! NOW IS THE TIME FOR RABID SPECULATION & SHARP FINGER POINTING!!!

As for you, FiPS reader...Amaro's got an online petition going, to help sway the SLA, so if you're into making differences via internet activism, now's your chance. To Alcohol! The cause of AND solution to all of life's problems!

Read way more from Shawn at eatdrinksnack.com and eatdrinktaco.com.