After the Alvarado city council voted 4-2 in favor of a variance for the Alvarado Food Mart to sell alcohol less than 300 feet from the property line of Alvarado Junior High School last month, Alvarado ISD administrators and community members made a goal to keep it from happening again.
At Monday’s city council meeting, residents came out in droves to express their feelings about a proposed second variance for Sidak Petro No. 3 near Alvarado High School.
The city hall foyer was standing room only.
AISD Superintendent Chester Juroska, who said he was particularly upset about the first variance, spoke first during the public hearing.
“Speaking from my heart as much as from my mind, I’d like to say that alcohol sales next door to a school, any school, is not a good idea,” Juroska told council members.
The first variance was granted to the existing Alvarado Food Mart on Jan. 23. The proposed second variance would have been for a long-abandoned building near the entrance of AHS.
“If the sales of alcohol near our schools are a thing to do, then I suppose it’s OK for our teachers and parents and coaches to go in there after school and buy their wine and beer for the night’s activities,” Juroska said.
Selling alcohol so close to schools gives Alvarado a bad image, protestors argued.
AISD Athletic Director Jeff Dixon said he couldn’t imagine money being above the welfare of AISD students.
“I deal with kids daily as my profession,” he said. “It’s not about winning ball games. It’s about being an influence on their lives ... It would make our job much more difficult to bring the world that much closer to them. We cannot allow this to take place so close to the school.”
Even a 2003 graduate who lives in Fort Worth showed up to protest the variance. He also expressed his surprise about Alvarado’s recent vote to sell alcohol in the once-dry town.
“I never thought I’d see the day that we’d sell beer and wine in this town,” Chris Farmer said.
The variance applicant, Fort Worth resident Chris Wilde, said the structure at the proposed site would be torn down and rebuilt to include a gas station and restaurant with beer and wine sales.
“It would be a good idea to apply for this variance especially because the adjacent convenience store with the Grandy’s will be selling the beer and wine,” he told council members.
The Grandy’s owner, Zafar Kahn, was at the meeting and said he decided to sell alcohol as a means to survive as a business owner. He did not have to apply for a variance, however, as the location fell within Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission distance guidelines.
“It’s not that [the potential buyers] are trying to enhance the city, they’re trying to profit themselves,” Kahn said. He said the city would make a mistake in giving a brand-new business a variance.
After about 30 minutes, council members closed the public hearing.
Council member Jacob Wheat made the first motion against the variance, followed by Tom Moore. City Secretary Debbie Thomas said Moore voted in favor of the first variance, Wheat voted against it.
Council members at Monday’s meeting unanimously denied the second variance. Council member Arrdeen Vaughan was not present.
TABC Director of Communications Carolyn Beck said last week that a business may not apply for a license to sell alcohol without a city variance.
She said several complaints, including one penned by Juroska, had been made against the Alvarado Food Mart variance.
“We’re not going to tell people we can’t take their complaint, but we’re not going to override the city if the city says it’s OK,” Beck said.
She said the TABC received the food mart’s application to sell on Feb. 8 but it has not been approved.
A similar variance was denied in Joshua last week, said Mary Beth Thomas, Joshua city secretary. In that case, an established convenience store at 520 N. Broadway St. that is less than 300 feet from Covenant Church, a day care and Joshua Christian Academy, was denied a variance by a 5-2 vote.
