Tenleytown Whole Foods Avoids Liquor License Fight

Map It:  Tenleytown 

WHOLE FOODS doesn't usually have trouble getting a license to sell alcohol. Although some hawk-eyed Tenleytown residents were up in arms last month when their local Whole Foods requested a permit to sell beer and wine, it appears the store will get its way.

Some locals protested the store's request because it's across the street from Woodrow Wilson Senior High School.

"Do we really want to take a chance that these teenagers might be able to buy beer and wine (illegally) at a nearby Whole Foods store?" wrote Tenleytown resident Lyla Winter in a posting at D.C. Watch's The Mail last month. "Protect Tenleytown and our neighborhood."

H. Singh Bakshi, the owner of Tenley Wine & Liquor — which sits around the corner from Whole Foods' inside-a-parking-garage location — argued against the liquor license request at a local advisory commission meeting last month, carrying a petition with more than 100 signatures, the Northwest Current reported at the time.

Since no one filed an official complaint with the District's Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, Whole Foods could receive its liquor license within the next week, Sarah Kenney, the company's director of marketing for the Mid-Atlantic region, tells Free Ride.

She said the company expected Tenleytown residents to protest the store's request. If anyone had filed a complaint, Whole Foods would have been required to defend its request in a public hearing.

Kenney said the Austin, Texas-based grocer doesn't usually experience this much resistance when seeking liquor licenses because of the store's upscale reputation. The Glover Park Whole Foods location, formerly a Bread & Circus, has had its liquor license since 1995. And that's in a neighborhood where some residents freaked out when Bourbon, now a Glover Park mainstay, originally opened.

"Because of the context in which we sell beer and wine, where it's heavily connected to the food, I don't think anyone is concerned," Kenney said.

The Tenleytown Whole Foods, like the Glover Park location, has been undergoing renovations as of late. So expect to see beer and wine as part of the completed package.

» "Tenleytown Whole Foods Liquor License" [The Mail/D.C. Watch, 5th item]

Written by Express contributor Gabe Nelson