Local anti liquor lobby group, Dry Fish Hoek, has expressed concern about the size of the Pick * Pay bottle store in The Arcade after another shop vacated its premises to make way for an extension of the store.
In February, Grace Hair Design and Nails, directly opposite Pick * Pay, vacated its premises to make way for the bottle store, and last week, another shop, Feel Good Stuff, next to the former salon also vacated its premises.
Both shopfronts have been closed off with paper.
Fish Hoek lost its dry-town status in December last year after the chairman of the Liquor Appeal Tribunal found that the Liquor Licensing Tribunal (LLT) had “failed to apply its mind fully” to Pick * Pay’s original liquor application by accepting unsubstantiated testimony, and the LLT was obliged to overturn the previous ruling and issue a licence to Pick * Pay within 14 days (“End of an era,” Echo, December 13 2018).
This followed a notice of
appeal by Pick * Pay in August last year, questioning the decision by the LLT, saying it erred by turning down an application to open a bottle store in The Arcade (“Dry or wet debate,” Echo, August 16, 2018).
Dry Fish Hoek founder
Donald Moore questioned whether floor plans had been submitted for the extension and said that if the extension had been granted, what was stopping Pick * Pay
from further extending the bottle store at a later stage should more space become available in The Arcade.
Plans submitted with the application at the beginning of 2017, he said, had definitely not included what was then the haberdashery shop, Feel Good Stuff.
Mr Moore said Pick * Pay indicated – in response to objections in the appeal last year – that it intended to provide a small boutique type of bottle store.
“Doubling the size of the premises seems to give the lie to this and should they further extend the store it will result in a massive bottle store,” he said.
Pick * Pay co-owner Julian Hobson said an application for permission to conduct the business on extended premises had
been lodged with the liquor authority in March and the store
would open as soon as all the permissions and alterations were complete.
Fish Hoek designated liquor officer, Warrant Officer Peter
Middelton, confirmed that an application to extend the premises had been submitted by Pick * Pay.
He said it was not uncommon and Pick * Pay was within its rights to do so.
Western Cape Liquor Authority spokeswoman, Nwabisa Mpalala, confirmed that the Liquor Licencing Tribunal issued licences according to the floor plans and site plans submitted on the liquor licence applications.
She said according to Section 34 of the Western Cape Liquor
Act of 2008, Pick * Pay was allowed to make alterations to its floor
plan.