By Jonathan Friedman
Associate Editor

December 21, 2015 -- A trip to the Santa Monica Ralphs on Cloverfield Boulevard off Olympic Boulevard could soon include a wine tasting in addition to traditional grocery shopping.

The Planning Commission approved the permit on Wednesday to allow the tastings, which could also be used for spirits and beer. There were objections from one commissioner and a resident who lives near the store.

Ralphs was granted a permit for a state-approved “instructional tasting license.” This will allow it to bring in vendors who provide tastings in a 30-square-foot temporary area in the store's alcohol section.

Customers are limited for the day to a quarter-ounce of distilled spirits, one ounce of wine, and eight ounces of beer. Planning consultant Alex Campbell, representing Ralphs, told the commission the tastings would mostly be limited to wine.

These restrictions are not good enough for Sunset Park resident Zina Josephs, who requested the commission reject Ralphs’ request.

“I’m the type of person that two sips of wine and i’m tipsy,” she said.
“Everyone doesn’t have the same reaction to alcohol, and why we would want to have more people driving away from a grocery store after drinking alcohol, I just don’t understand."

Josephs referenced Santa Monica’s recent designation by a website as the “drunkest city in California” that received significant attention, although some people questioned the ranking.

She said there have been several drunk-driving related crashes in the area.
“Cloverfield Boulevard is one of the main north/south streets in the Sunset Park neighborhood, and we don't look forward to more inebriated drivers coming through our neighborhood,” she said. “I don’t know why we would want to encourage more people to drink and drive.”

Campbell responded that the people serving the alcohol are trained to observe the customers’ ages and whether they were drinking too much.

Commissioner Gerda Newbold said she didn’t believe people would be drinking enough at these tastings to create a problem.

“I see this just as an amenity for people grocery shopping,” she said. “These are tiny amounts. I think that drunk driving is clearly a concern, but I just don’t think this particular project creates an issue.”

Most of the other commissioners apparently agreed with Newbold since they voted with her in favor of the permit request. The lone opponent was Jennifer Kennedy.

“I feel like the shoppers coming into a grocery story looking for alcohol don’t have the same kind of intention as they do maybe when they’re shopping for groceries or food items,” Kennedy said.

She continued, “So I don’t see it as actually being a benefit to people who are shopping in the store, whereas maybe the food type tastings are.”
Also at the meeting, the commission voted unanimously for a 25,000-square-foot mixed-use development on Santa Monica Boulevard off Stanford Street.

The building will include 26 rental units and 3,450 square feet of ground-floor commercial space, which the architect told the commission will most likely be a single restaurant.

With the residential units, there will be 12 one-bedrooms, seven two-bedrooms and four three-bedrooms.

Two of the one-bedroom units and two of the two-bedroom units will be deed-restricted as “affordable” and available for tenants making less than 50 percent of the area median income.

Since the project meets all the size limits in City regulations, a development agreement is not needed. This means the owner did not need to provide negotiated public benefits and no City Council review is required unless the commission’s decision is appealed.

Nobody spoke in opposition to the project, and it even received praise from Mid-City Neighbors President Andrew Hoyer, who is often critical of development proposals.

“I see absolutely nothing wrong with it,” he told the commission. “It fits everything we’ve been asking for. It has the right mix of units and it has a little extra in the way of affordable housing.”