Planning Commission

Mr. Secretary, are there any deletions and continuances of any of the items listed on the agenda? >> Yes, good evening, Madam Chair and commissioners. Item number 4, AP 230167 Pinkel iron sauce manufacturing ma silty staff is requesting a continuance of this item to a date specific of August 26th. Thank you. >> Thank you. If a member of the audience would like to speak NOIN item of the agenda or non-agenda issue, please fill out a comment citizen card next to the podium, the bright yellow pad and please hand it to the clerk. Madame clerk, are there any public comments. >> There are none. >> Thank you. I now call for the approval of the consent calendar. Does anyone have any items they want pulled from the consent calendar. If not, do I hear a motion? >> Commissioner Popova? >> Notion approve the consent calendar. Commissioner robinson. >> I second. >> Let's cast our votes. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. We've now come to the public hearing portion of the agenda. Mr. Secretary, please read the next item. >> Yes. Good evening again Madam Chair and commissioners. We have two items on the agenda tonight for public hearing. The first item is a use permit for pet grooming facility. This will be located within the Atlantic plaza. Kelsey Gunter, associate planner, will provide the commission with her presentation. And we are available for questions afterwards. Thank you. >> Thank you. Yes, good evening, chair foster and members of the commission. I will be presenting the item number 2 tonight, Atlantic pet groomers. So to start a little bit of background, the application was filed with the city on June 25th, 2025, requesting approval of the use permit to establish an animal grooming facility. It's located within a multi-tenant structure Atlantic shopping center at 268 Atlantic. Use classification animal grooming is defined as bathing and trimming services for small animals on a commercial basis and does define what a small animal is. Consider it a domestic animal. We're all maybe familiar but located within a dwelling unit less than 250 pounds. As for the business operations, the business operator has proposed a floor plan that has a designated pickup and dropoff area for their customer and clientele. They are primarily appointment based and do have a crate room to house a maximum of eight dogs at any given time so they are able to manage the load with the amount of people they have coming in. They do anticipate hours of operation 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Typical business hours. They will utilize existing parking facilities within the shopping center. This slide here provides an aerial view of the product location so you can see the surrounding uses and indicated by the red star in the center is the tenant space. It is located kind of the the middle there of the Atlanta shopping plaza. As for code compliance, the proposed project of an animal grooming facility does require a use permit if located in a multi-ten gnat builting. Must meet required finding within 18.16.040 and found within your proposed resolution before you this evening. And the use classification animal grooming is consistent with the intent of the community commercial designation which is the general plan use December IG nation for this site. It is categorically exempt from analysis and review over CEQA guidelines 15301 because it is an existing building proposing no expansion of the building and no change in intensity of the land use. There are several conditions of approval to ensure that this operation remains compliant and consistent with the codes and regulations of the municipal code. On the screen is a couple key conditions. Wanted to highlight there will be no animal boarding proposed as part of this operation. That's a different use classification which isn't permitted there this zone. A building permit is required for tenant work that the applicant proposes. They plan to install some wash tub facilities in order to accommodate their use. So that type of work would need a building permit. All animal grooming must be performed indoors. And all pet bathing and cleaning liquids are disposed of in accordance with the municipal sanitary discharge. Different conditions of approval have been applied to the proposed project to ensure compliance with these regulations. Short presentation for you this evening, but staff's recommendation is that the planning KMIGTS move to adopt a resolution approving the use permit application number 25-0060 for Atlantic pet groomers, subject to the conditions in the proposed resolution. That concludes my presentation. But the applicant is here and staff is here and available for questions should you have any. Thank you. >> Thank you. I'm inviting the commissioners to pose any questions. Commissioner Smith? >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Just in looking at your slide of the project location, and that's on it in Atlantic plaza, just to get a feel for that, the building that we see to the right is a grocery store? Is that right? >> Yes, that's correct. >> And what was in this facility beforehand? What was here before? >> I believe it was a used clothes facility, but the applicant may have a better answer for that question. >> Okay. I know there was a doctor's office in there somewhere. I wondered if this was it. Thank you. That's it. >> I do have a question. Will there be a garbage can outside to catch any POOP, just in case the pets do that before they go into the facility? Yes. There are existing refuse disposal areas that the proposed operation would use. And we've contacted environmental health and we've received some conditions that have been incorporated into the resolution that have to do with the discharge of liquids and discharge of feces, for example. So sanitary regulations. >> All right. Thank you. If there are no other questions, I'm making sure. Can the applicant please step forward to the podium. Introduce yourself and -- >> Madam Chair. >> Announce the public hearing is open. Hi. I'm bob Garrison. I work for the ownership of Atlantic plaza. And I'm going to help Mariana as her interpreter tonight. >> Hi. >> Do you guys have any questions for Marian that? >> Commissioner robinson? I do. Thank you. Thank you for considering Pittsburgh for your business. When I was looking at your schematics, your plans for your shop, I saw that you had the haircutting, the pet haircutting area and you had the waiting area. Is there a glass or any kind of divider between the two because I couldn't tell from the drawing. >> No, there's not. There's the waiting area and then there's two offices, a small office and then another office that they're going to use for their crate room. And then in the back is where they would do the washing of the pets. >> Yeah. And I saw that. And I saw the two tables for cutting, grooming the pets. But I just know because I have a dog that sheds a lot, I know that hair just goes flying everywhere, so I was curious whether you have a partition or division between the haircutting area and where people will be waiting. Because I'm sure it will get pretty messy. >> Yeah. There's a wall that's going to separate the area. >> Okay. Looking at the plans it didn't look that way. So good to know. And then just one tub in the back? >> Just one, yeah. >> It's split and you can do two animals at the same time. How many employees will you have? >> Oh, for now, it's my niece and myself. >> Just two. >> Okay. Thank you very much. >> Commissioner Stokes? >> Yes. Thank you. And thank you for choosing Pittsburgh for your location. I know there's some neighbors in my development that are going to appreciate you being closer because there are reports they have to go outside of the city for this type of -- this type of grooming for their pets. So thank you for that. My question is you asked one of them about employees. Looking to the future, are you considering also adding say like a mobile service as well to kind of go alongside with this? Or for now it's just the location there at Atlantic plaza? >> No, not at this time. She has another location in Antioch, so with these two locations she has plenty on her plate. >> Okay. All right. And this is for dogs and cats? >> Not for cats. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Commissioner Popova? >> Thank you. You answered my question. But I was going to ask more about your experience. Your story how you ended up with your business idea. If you want to tell us what you have done previously as a dog groomer, that is something we would love to hear. >> She has about 23 years of experience doing pet grooming and four years at her location in Antioch. It's at the lucky's shopping center on CONTRALOMA boulevard. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you so much, commissioners. If you don't have any questions, I'm just going to ask the applicant to go back to their seats and see if there's any public comments. Madam Chair, are there any public comments? >> There are none. >> Thank you. If there's no other discussion or questions, I'm waiting to close the public hearing. Commissioners, deliberating on item, do you have any comments or do I hear a motion? Commissioner robinson? >> That we adopt the resolution granting approval of use permit to establish an animal grooming facility at 268 Atlantic avenue AP-25-60 U.P. >> Commissioner Smith? >> And I second that motion. >> Thank you. Let's cast our votes. The motion carries. Congratulations. Anyone object to this decision has ten days to file an appeal for a hearing before city council. Mr. Secretary, can you please read the next item. Yes. Good evening again, Madam Chair and commissioners. The second item, final item, public hearing item, is a use for an application for an existing AM/PM convenient store with beer and wine sales. The applicant is proposes to include the sale of distilled spirits. The project is located in the san Marco development. Kelsey Gunter, associate planner is here. Presentation to the commission. Thank you. >> Thank you once more. Good evening once more. Yes, I'll be presenting item number 3:00, a.m./p.m. , asking distilled spirits use permit application. By way of background, the application was filed in April of 2023, requesting approval of a use permit to establish the sale of distilled spirits in conjunction with an existing beer and wine sales license for ARCO and a.m./p.m. convenience store located at 2102 west Leland road. This item was granted a continuance by the planning commission to a date to be determined on July 11th, 2023. There's been a bit of lapse in time due to the creating of the ordnance, wanting to make sure all alcohol sales and service establishments were in compliance with the overall goals of the planning commission and city council. And on June 2nd, the city council did adopt two ordnances as you're familiar, creating healthy communities and one of which of these does performance standards for the sale and distribution of alcoholic beverages within the Pittsburgh community. The use permit is a request for approval to sell beer, wine and distilled spirits for off site at an existing convenience store that currently sells just beer and wine. It would require an ABC license change from type 20, off sales for beer and wine to a type 21 off-sale general which allows for a broader selection of sales. I will say that the change in ABC license type doesn't grant an additional license to the A-BC --or to the proposed business. It actually would just be a transfer. So there wouldn't be any increase in ABC licenses overall in the city. It would be like a like for like if the commission does recommend approval. Business operations. The existing business operations of the convenience store would continue as currently in operation. Distilled spirits would be offered for purchase in addition to the beer and wine sales and as located within the floor plan I'll get to within a minute, the distilled spirits would be located behind the cash register checkout area so as to not be easily grabbed or to be taken unauthorized. The areas and types of alcoholic beverage sales are commission to comply with the creating healthe healthy communities ordnance. I want to note the ordnance doesn't take effect until January 1st, 2026. We are treating all of these applications that we've received to date for alcoholic beverage sales and service as if the creating healthy communities ordnance were in effect meaning we want to commission the projects to comply with the creating healthy ordnance to be sure everybody is being treated fairly and we're moving forward with the performance standards that SBRN adopted. This slide provides an overview of the project location. It is off of California state route 4. It's located at the northwest intersection of san Marco boulevard in west Leland road. This is that floor plan I was discussing priestly. The main entry and exit is located at the bottom of the screen kind of the the middle bottom of the screen so right as you enter O into the ARCO a.m./p.m. , the cash register is straight ahead. That's indicated by the red rectangle and the spirits display is by the lime green. It would all be secured and only accessible by employees. As for code compliance, the use permit is required within the service commercial zoning district for a convenience store. Convenience stores are classified by the use classification of grocery. There is an existing use permit for the convenience store how they're operating today. But because they are expanding the sales to include distilled spirits, that triggers a new use permit which is why we're here today to discuss. You must meet as always with these permits the required findings within the PMC section of 18.16. 040 and those findings are outlined in the proposed resolution. As discussed that use classification of grocery is consistent with the intent of the overall land use designation which is community/commercial. I've created this map to kind of highlight the different ABC licenses off sale ABC licenses within the project site vicinity. So off sale licenses are those that are issued to retail stores that are issued to grocery stores and those issued to convenient stores. The ones that are highlighted on the screen are just the ones adjacent to the project site. And I've listed the authorized amount of ABC licenses versus the active amount of ABC licenses within each census checked. ABC does assign a number of authorized ABC licenses based on census track and that has to do within the population within each census tracked. That's how they determine their allowances. Key conditions of approval. In addition to those within the proposed resolution I did want to highlight that the applicant has reviewed and agreed to comply with the creating healthy communities ordinance. Within the new PMC section 18.84.1025. In addition, ABC actually offers a voluntary program that business owners can send their employees to. And that program is referred to as the license education on alcohol and drugs program. As a condition of approval to this project, we are making the requirement to attend that course a requirement of all existing employees and any new employees coming into the alcoholic beverage sales and service -- alcoholic beverage sales facility, similar to any future. Requiring within 90 days of the beginning of employment or 90 days if they are existing employees. As per environmental, same categorical exemption here. 15301 for existing facilities. There's no change that the proposed use would continue to occupy. And existing commercial tenant space with no expansion of the building footprint or intensity of the land use. And with that, staff recommends the planning commission move to adopt a resolution approving use permit application 23- 0062 for :00-0062 for ARCO a.m./p.m. distilled spirits, subject to conditions. Applicant is here should you have any questions for them. >> Thank you, Ms. GUNTNER? Commissioners, do you have any questions for staff? Commissioner Popova? >> Thank you. Can we go back to the slide where you showed the number of licenses in the census tracked. I see in most of the census tracks more are authorized than active except for 3150. Once can I get more. >> Census track 3105 is not within the city of Pittsburgh. The yellow line is California state route 4 so to the north is unincorporated bay point. I included to understand the proximity of existing sales and services. ABC allows for overconcentration if the jurisdiction approves that overconcentration. So sometimes when we come to the planning commission, we present what's called a public convenience and necessity determination. That's us telling the commission, hey, there's this authorized amount of two licenses that we have two right now and issuing this one is going to make it the the third which is considered an overconcentration, which is not generally authorized but it is if the jurisdiction approves it. So in this case, the unincorporated community of bay point approved an overconcentration. >> The active ones are not a subset of the authorized ones. >> One more time? >> The number of active licenses are not a subset of the authorized. >> The number of active ones are the number of businesses currently operating. Authorized is what ABC allows for based on the population. So, for example, for that population of 3150 bay point is allowed one license for off sale, meaning for a grocery store, liquor store, convenience store but there's five. So bay point is allowed for that. >> Thank you. Thanks. >> Commissioner Smith? >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for the presentation. I think the name probably says it all, but what are the hours of operation? And would --the sales of this will take place during the entire time it's open from what to what? >> So, the creating healthy communities ordinance limits the sale of alcoholic beverages between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. So we proprosed this as a condition of approval to comply with the initiative, condition of approval to this project and the applicant agreed to that limitation in which case between the hours of 10:01 p.m. and 7:59 a.m., all alcoholic sales would be prohibited and they would be -- the doors would be locked so nobody would be able to purchase during those times. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Commissioner robinson? >> Thank you. Great presentation, by the way. Very informative. I'm going to stick with the slide that we have here just because I'm curious. We have not seen this information displayed like this before. Is this something --some new analysis that's coming? Or is it to do with our creating healthy communities ordinance? Just curious. >> Yep. It's just for transparency. It is with the creating healthy communities ordinance as we bring forward these alcoholic beverage sales and service licenses, we will start to provide more information like this because we understand there are concerns of our council and concerns of our commission. So just wanting to be informative with regard to the areas. So thank you. The authorized versus the active, that was really good information for me to have. >> Thank you. >> I do have a question. It's probably more for Mr. Thunderburg. Can you explain bay point's relationship to Pittsburgh as in the sphere of influence because bay point is barely -- parts of san Marco is bay point. And then north of 4 is bay point. nearest liquor store is in bay point. So how far is that and explain the sphere of influence why we have to include this information. So within the sphere of influence, the city itself, our general plan talks about planned growth areas. So certain communities are within a sphere of influence of the city of Pittsburgh. So those planned areas, we make the interpretation that there could be some considerable growth so that's included in our general plan. So we'll set aside the sphere of influence. Now, when we talk about the ABC licenses, we're really trying to be transparent here and give the council and the commission the best information available in regards to how many active licenses are out there and how many authorized licenses are out there. I think the questions that come upmost when we're looking at these applications is are we increasing the number of type 20 or type 21 applications, or are there going to be more applications in one census track and how many are in that census track and is there going to be overconcentration. As we bring more of these applications forward to the commission and to the council, we'll try to be as transparent as we can and give you the best information. >> Follow-up question. What's the procedures with the chief of police having a say on these kind of establishments. >> So when we send out the project referrals for these applications, we send it to the police department, we also send it to VIERMTSal health, we send it to all agent sis, ABC, of course, to make sure that they're compliant. If there's questions or conditions or comments that need to be included, PD's reviewed this application. And they've also included the conditions where the cameras need to be there. There's also no loitering. There needs to be someone there that's active in making sure that people aren't just hanging out there and making sure there's not nuisances or activities that would be considered a problem for the PD. >> Follow-up question. Do we have PD presence up there compared to -- there's several cluster of these facilities, however, we have PD close by to respond to incidents. >> So great question. There is. There's a presence of PD in that location. They have the beats. There's beats at that night --I'm saying, I don't want to be real specific about this, but calls for service in that area are typically low, but there are beat cops that are out there that are patrolling and making sure that, you know, safety and free of crime. So there is an increased presence out there. >> Thank you. Are there any conditional questions from from the commissioners? If not, I will open public hearing. Will the applicant step to the podium. Hello. Good evening. My name is Steve recallings. I'm a consultant to a.m./p.m. This is actually a store that's owned by BP North America. They're the largest a.m./p.m. franchiseE in country. I am a consultant to them, helping them with licenses here in their stores throughout the state of California. As was mentioned earlier, we concur with the staff's recommendation and we do agree to all of the draft conditions of approval as presented to you this evening. I would like to expand upon just a couple of things. The first one I want to really touch on is the request to upgrade the license to allow us to sell distilled spirits is not driven by the need to sell bottles of tequila or vodka. There's a product called ready to drink beverages. We're all probably familiar with the white claws or trulies. They've become very, very popular in the last ten years. Well, in the last, say, five years their products are now -- they have a lot of products that are actually made with the ingredient of a distilled spirit. So, for example, the white claw line margarita is a very, very popular drink. As well as like the truly vodka sodas are a very popular drink as well. Those products typically have an alcohol by volume of about 5%. Which is what a beer is if you went to go buy --if you drank a Moe dell LA or any type of beer. The alcohol by volume is going to be 5%. So these products that white claw makes, they're traditional white claws and trulies are about 5% and the white claws margarita that contain a distilled spirit ingredient are also about 5%. That's what the real driver is. Those are the most requested product now by customers. So what we're aiming to do is to be able to satisfy that demand from customers of that type of product. About two years ago, maybe it was three years ago now, there was a legislation in the state of California to allow the sale of products that had an alcohol by volume of less than 10% and that we could sell those with the type 20 license that we have. That bill did not pass. And so the rule is from ABC that if it contains a distilled spirit, you need to have the type 21 license. Well, we may inventory some bottles of spirits, they would be kept behind the cashIER in a locked glass cabinet. It's not the driver. That's not the business that we're really aiming to get. We will carry some of those products, but by and large, what we're looking to do is be able to sell these types of products, as I described to you there. They're very, very popular. Couple things I also wanted toto about operations. These are corporately owned --this is a corporate owned store. They have lots of layers of management. But one of the things that's interesting about the corporate stores is they actually employee a third party company to do mystery shopping. That means somebody literally comes in and they come in, they see if somebody has said hello to them. They pick out a bunch of different products. They see if people will help them. They observe how clean the store is, et cetera, et cetera and go in and try to make a purchase of an alcoholic beverage making sure that our cashIE-RS followed proper procedures and did a proper identification check. They take their business very seriously. Not just in the selling of alcohol, which is obviously very important. But all other aspects of their business. Every month they're graded for cleanliness, customer service, bathrooms clean, outside, trash enclosures kept up, so on and so forth. So, that is one thing that's separates ARCO from a lot of other smaller mom and pops. They invest in making sure that their stores are very well ran. In terms of training, Kelsey touched upon it. We do train our employees through the lead program which is sponsored by --which is put on by the department of alcoholic beverage control. It focuses very heavily on conducting proper identification checks and also focuses in on signs of people that are coming in that are already intoxicated. You're not allowed -- if somebody is clearly displaying that they're drunk, you are not allowed to sell them. That even goes within restaurants as well. So, that's what they spend lot of time on. Not many people know this that if you did sell to an underage person, obviously the company has some responsibility, but the individual person that did that is going to get a fine for about 1,500 bucks also. And will be automatically terminated by the company. So, while alcohol sales are, you know, part of the business there, we don't need to cut corners and potentially sell it to somebody who doesn't look of age or to -- that somebody looks to be intoxicated. It's much easier to say no on the sales. In terms of identification checks, obviously our employees check them but we have card scanners, so we scan the IDs to make sure that, you know, that what we see on there is what it is. And those are a couple of the big aspects that I wanted to cover with everybody here about this particular operation and really what the motivation is for making this request this evening to just upgrade our license to type 21. I'll leave it with this, a.m./p.m. has been renowned as a leader in the convenience store business. Our business is convenience stores. That means we carry a wide array of product, coffee probably being one of the most important ones and sodas and waters and other products that we've all become very, very used to. That is the core business. We are not expanding the display to accommodate this. It will just go right in one of the coolers that the beer is. Strike that. We're expanding it by about six square feet which is what the display in the back would be. So it's not something that we're looking to really monumentally increase the product offering. Just a small portion of it. So any way, with that, thank you so much for your attention and your consideration. I'm available for any questions that anybody might have. Commissioner robinson. >> Hi. Thank you. And thank you for the information. Really interesting to understand the difference between the seltzers and the beer and how they're allowed to be sold in a retail environment. That's something I did not understand in thinking about the offering the bottles behind the cashIER, the cash register was concerning. Understandable but also concerning. But seeing that you're really just trying to accommodate a wider base of customers is what it seems like to me. The people that drink the seltzers don't necessarily like the beers and some lines that do not cross there. Is this happening -- you mentioned that there's a number of a.m./p.m. s that are under your umbrella. Is this happening across the board? Are we seeing this permit being applied for at other a.m./p.m. s in our region? >> I am currently probably processing roughly ten to 20 similar applications for different clients throughout the state of California. And again, the driver for all of them is not to --is the same driver. That's how popular these ready to drink beverages are. No, you know, my client here is BP North America. They own about 40 :00 or 50:00 a.m./p.m. s here in the state of California. They have a much wider presence in other parts of the country there. And we are selectively going through and upgrading the licenses where it's appropriate. Sometimes it's a little cost prohibitive to do that because the type 21 license is --can be expensive in certain areas. So it doesn't make a lot of sense to make that purchase because you'll never get the return on investment there. But, yes, this is a pretty popular trend. But you know again, it's not like every store they've asked me to go in and try to do that. It's not slowly but surely rolling out. Okay. Thank you. >> Commissioner Stokes? >> Okay. Thank you. Thank you for the information. Two of my questions are, one is I think you spoke to one already. I was going to ask you in terms of you wanting to upgrade. Is there something that has changed or is there a reason for that? And I think you mentioned none other than just having this product available in terms of the sales? >> Yeah, that's the main driver is to be able to sell these ready to drink beverages. >> Okay. Then my next one I think across the board we understand that there's a concern for some of these items in terms of the way they're packaged. >> Uh-huh. >> That kind of cater to the younger generation wanting to purchase these products. Is there a concern there that you have as a consultant that to upgrade your license to also offer this to the younger generation as well? >> Well, one of the things interesting about convenience stores depending on where they're located, most of our customers --I mean, a vast majority of our customers have arrived in a car, in a vehicle, they have driven there. Almost everybody that comes through our store is an adult. If they are children, most of the time, believe it or not, they are with an adult. Once in a while you'll get teenagers come by in a vehicle so on and so forth. That's why we go through great amount of training to make sure that we're not going to make a mistake and sell to somebody that's not of age. In terms of the packaging, there is a condition of approval in there that goes to that and that's a very make sense, in my opinion, a make sense type of condition there. Okay. And also I know that there are schools within this location. My concern is not so much of the elementary and middle school but the high schoolers who are able to get into a vehicle and leave the school on their lunch break and come in and with this generation now, they're very creative in terms of technology and things of that nature. So, my question to that is with the training --I don't know if the training is online or in person, does the training include having that person be able to detect if this is not just a young person coming in --I won't say pretending but coming in with an ID that would not be identifiable as something that they've kind of made up online or some other type of way. Does that training involve them being able to detect it to that degree? >> Yes, it does. The ABC training spends a great deal of time on how to conduct proper identification checks and maybe to recognize it. There's nothing foolproof. But that's also why we use the card scanners because a proper identification is going to have information embedded on there and that is an extra measure for it. We also do train our people that our staff members that when people come into the store, we're supposed to be making eye contact and observing what's going on. Aside from alcohol, you know, unfortunately all retailers are subject to shoplifting. And that's nothing that anybody takes lightly anymore. There's no --we don't make a claim on your insurance. You already bought the product. It is money going out the door. So, part of our initiative with our staff members is to be on the lookout for that. It's going to happen. And I'm not saying it's happening with beer. It could happen with a lot of other products as well. So, we try to go through great lengths to train and do what we can that's reasonable to prevent any type of shoplifting and especially in the alcohol area there. >> And through the chair, I just want to make one note to the conditions of approval. Specifically we are requiring evidence of the employee's completion of the training to provide to the PD or us, as a condition of approval upon request. Just to let you know, we are taking these things seriously in regards to making sure that we are creating healthy communities. >> Thank you. >> One of the other things I was going to say that our management is aded upon outside activity. Our managers are expected to go outside and inspect and make sure that, hey, we have water where -- for your windshield wipers and to observe what's going on around the store, make sure that we're picking up trash on a very regular basis. So, we're watching for loitering and we're watching for groups of teenagers that might be hanging out there. Hey, what are these guys up to? Why have they been out here for so long, that kind of stuff. We certainly aren't looking to create any problems, but we certainly are there to observe what's going on and if we think there is something going on and pick up the phone and ask the police to --well, usually if they give them a warning, say, hey, you can't be here. We need you to be gone. If they don't go, we pick up the phone and have the police do it if it's a situation where we don't feel comfortable approaching people, we just call the police. >> Commissioner Kent? >> Hi, thank you for your presentation. Most of my questions have been asked and answered. And just to delve into the theft potential a little bit more. My understanding is that the spirits are behind the counter, but the beverages is seltzers beverages will be alongside the beers? >> Correct. >> And where are those placed in the store? >> The coolers are all along kind of the side there. So, if you're sitting here --there you go. They're not actually the ones that are parallel, they're the ones that are kind of --yeah. Go up and down there. Yeah. That way. That gives us a much better line of sight there rather than the ones that are kind of right over here to your --looking here to your left. It's a little bit easier to do for line of sight and that is strategic. We want everybody to know that we can see you standing over there and we do look -- it's much easier to be taking a glance that way as opposed to turning over that way. Also, too, there's multiple people at the store. You know, we have anywhere from 2 to 4 people on staff there late in the evenings. It goes down to two. But, we won't be selling past 10:00 p.m. We're not looking to be that late night beer run type of situation. >> Thank you. >> Commissioner Smith? >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for that very thorough presentation. I have a few questions. I teach community college, and identify had a number of students that work in convenience stores. You're making sure that everybody that's selling alcohol is of age to drink alcohol. >> Correct. >> I'm assuming. >> Yes. >> Even though they might be working in the store, they won't be doing that. I know these drinks are tremendously poplar. I've had them. They're great. And they're usually cold. So, is there a cold case that's included behind the cashIER going to hold these specialty drinks you're talking about? >> So, a little point of clarification. The bottles of pure alcohol would be behind there. The RTDs which have basically the same alcohol by volume are intended to be out in the coolers where the beer is. And I think I've talked to staff about that. And that was our -- >> Oh, I see. Okay. So the case to the line of sight that you were talking about is where you would include those? >> Right. I mean, you know, we have beer in there. We already have white claws and trulies. We would just be adding some of this product. We're not expanding the the number of coolers. We're going to replace a little bit of inventory. >> I see. Last question, is there a maximum amount that people can come in and buy? Somebody is coming N they're going to have a party and they're buying a lot of alcohol. Do you have a maximum? >> No. I will say this, people that are buying a lot for a party are typically not coming to a convenience store. They're going to go to a total wine, Costco some place like that. Sell a couple 12 packs. We usually don't see somebody clearing out a whole cooler, partly there's probably a better bargain for those in other places. But we would find that people would go to a grocery store, total wine, Costco to make those very, very large purchases like that. >> Okay. Thank you. >> I do have a question. Are these beverages you're selling affordable? >> Yes. I mean, yes, they're affordable. I mean, we're competitive with pretty much every other place in terms of our pricing. We might be a little bit higher than some other places. >> Are you selling anything different than what they're selling in bay point, which already has a lot of alcohol outlets? I'm sorry, I didn't understand. Are you selling anything different than what the other alcohol outlets are offering in bay point? >> I'm not completely familiar with all the stores that are there. I would suspect that convenience store nventories, whether it be an a.m./p.m. or chevron are going to be very similar type product wise. >> And what is the customer profile who are demanding these products? As in, anyone, demographic, income? >> Interestingly enough it's kind of across the board. Wine drinking has certainly been a bit on the decline in general. And the people that have been purchasing seltzers, they're people that don't necessarily like the taste of beer per se. Not everybody like beer. So it's an alternative product that they have been purchasing there. And so --that's kind of across all demographics. 20 somethings, 30 something s, 50 somethings, we do find people that are coming in there and most of the time, again, we're a convenience store. You're filling up with gas, mornings we're going in to get coffee. Late in the afternoon, you might --maybe there's a niner game on or raider game on later that night and you want to buy some beer and you bring it home with you to consume. But it's kind of somewhat across the board. I was actually pretty surprised that --I'm in my 50s. I was pretty surprised to find out that my age demographic is attracted to that same product, mostly just because it's a taste thing. Maybe they're not drinking as much wine and some people don't like beer. Well, thank you. Commissioners, do you have any other follow-up questions? If not, I will open the public hearing. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Or closing. Are there any public comments? >> There are none. >> Thank you. I'll close the public hearing. Sorry. All right. Deliberation time. Comments, questions for staff or the applicant or for Mr. FUNDERberg. Commissioner robinson. >> One thing that comes to mind in thinking about this proposal is that we've heard again and again from residents that the san Marcos area they want more resources out that way. That includes being able to stop and get a ready to drink beverage, I would assume. And keeping that money within the city of Pittsburgh versus outside of our borders, bad word for this time, but on the other side of the freeway, I think that's a definite benefit to approving this project or permit. Any other comments? Commissioner Popova? >> Thank you. And again, I think we heard a lot of questions accountability from the applicant tonight. Ultimately accountability with overconsumption, purchasing more or in bulk lies within the residents and who chooses to consume the product and how. So, as long as the applicant meets the conditions and all of the legislative requirements we have of them really that's all we're making the decision based on. For once in a while --and then we hope to have the guidelines in place to have a community that is willing to be more responsible to what we're doing. So, but really the focus of discussion tonight is not whether someone is going to buy one case or five cases of the product, that is allowed under this permit but more like have the applicant --required to take the steps and have they met everything that's required of them. So for me, it's pretty straight forward. Again, it's about offering the resources, how we consume them that's huge discussion but a different discussion. So, with that, I feel like I support this application. >> I will just say because I do go around the city and familiar with bay point and bay point has a lot inequality. They have a lot of these facilities. San Marco actually has a recovery house. And the reason I know there is a lady begging for a bicycle, so she can bike and see her children. So I brought up the bike. I was surprised to see that there was this house that's a recovery facility. So, with a recovery facility nearby, I just don't think this is helpful. If the criteria as an adult, sober, so somebody down there can just walk down the street and have a relapse. And then with bay point's inequality problems, they might just visit us in san Marco. We have plenty of these facilities. I don't know who is begging for this. Last I checked when we had all those study sessions, they just wanted a grocery store. Not a liquor store. So I don't know san Marcos is begging for this. I can't support anything that's not being -- no one in san Marcos is asking for. When if somebody wants these white claw, they can go down to bay point which is a mile down the road and that liquor store on --near shore acres, cam's liquors, there was a murder there, barely two years ago. They had to rebrand and change the name. It's no longer cam's liquor but it's a liquor store and the sign says liquor. So, I just don't know if there's any benefit to adding another one of these facilities in the city when we have more than 80. Commissioner Kent? >> I think the only concern I have is one that I share with the community about the attractiveness to the younger crowd. But I feel that based on the presentation they're very vigilant, the training is there. I don't drink spirits but I do enjoy a white claw on a hot day after work and I'm very grateful there is a liquor store right across the street, but at the same time, I don't think this is meant to be a liquor store. It's a convenience store. And that is convenient. >> Well, anybody put in a motion or have some more discussion? >> Commissioner robinson? >> See, I move that we adopt resolution approving use permit application number -62:00 for ARCO a.m./p.m. distilled spirits subject to conditions. >> Commissioner Kent? [ Inaudible ]. >> It's not coming up. >> Okay. We're going to have to do a roll call. Commissioner Kent? AYE. >> Commissioner Popova? >> AYE. >> Commissioner foster. >> NAY. Commissioner robinson? >> AYE. >> Commissioner Stokes? >> NAY. >> Commissioner Smith? >> NAY. The motion fails. Thank you. Anyone onlies to decision has ten days to file an appeal the decision applying a before city council. Mr. Secretary, are there any zoning administrative reports? Yes. Good evening again, Madam Chair. The zoning administrator submits one notice of intent for administrative design review. Staff will continue to process application staff level if there's no questions. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Are there any staff communications? >> Yes. We'll start off with future meetings. So, August 12th we have three items that evening. So, first item is time extension for request for design review application. You have seen this application before, corner of east 10th street. And then the second item is a use permit for establish a multiuse meeting network and event space rented by small business for banquets. This is at 45 east 5 th street. This is along that corridor where there's an escape room and this business there. Next is baby academy, use permit approval. It's accomplish a religious general office business and administrative use and day care located within one of the multi- tenant buildings. 640. 660, 670 Cumberland street. Ted commercial district. Also that evening, you'll be hearing as a recommendation on adoption of the five-year capital improvement program and bring that forward to you before we -- before public works takes that forward to the city council as a recommendation. And finally, as you know, car show, season is here. So car show, this Thursday July 24th, I'm still excited about July 4th. But July 24th, John Buckley square, from 6 to 8 and the guest band is chocolate rice. Also, family fun Friday, July 25th at the marina center that's from 6 to 8. There will be backpack give awas, bounce houses, petting zoo and food vendor. It will be exciting. Family fun Friday. And then as we know, we are right the middle of the development title update, so we are in wrapping up phase one. Phase one of the workshops, phase one of the community meetings. And we'll be holding more of an informational session, like a workshop kind of providing some feedback from the community given some insight to what we're looking forward to in this development title update. So that's Saturday July 26th at --from 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. at the marina center. And that concludes staff's communications. Thank you, Madam Chair, commissioners. >> Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Community reports, round robin, commissioner Stokes? >> None. >> Nothing to report. Commissioner robinson? Economic development did not meet this month. >> Commissioner Smith? >> Nothing to report. >> And for myself, we are --our meeting was cancelled so we did not meet. Commissioner Popova? >> Community economic development, no July meeting. >> Commissioner Reily? >> There was no meeting. >> Thank you. If there are no other comments, I'm adjourning the meeting to August 12th. Have a good night.