Riverdale Park’s Town Center Market is Fighting to Sell On Site
The future of a beloved Riverdale Park gathering spot is in jeopardy as it fights to keep its right to serve alcohol on-site.
Located at 4705 Queensbury Rd., at the heart of the city’s historic center, Town Center Market has long sold a wide array of beers, wines, and liquors for home consumption while also offering a glass or a pint to enjoy on its outdoor patio.
The unusual arrangement was permitted for a long time under its Prince George’s County alcohol license, which has a Class BL+ designation allowing on-and off-site alcohol sales.
The Prince George’s County Board of License Commissioners no longer allows new businesses to acquire a BL+ license, but existing license-holders can renew for $3,270 a year, meaning Town Center Market has been grandfathered in.
Now that arrangement appears to be in trouble. An email being widely circulated on local listservs notes that the Board of License Commissioners will be discussing a challenge to Town Center Market’s liquor license at its Feb. 11 hearing.
That could mean it would have to end on-site alcohol sales, though the six-packs, bottles of wine and liquor could still be picked up to drink at home.
The change would be in keeping with a broader legislative shift in Prince George’s County toward making it easier for restaurants and bars to get liquor licenses while tightening restrictions on liquor stores. One proposal would even start a pilot program to make it easier for some grocery stores to apply for alcohol licenses.
To send a comment on Town Center Market, email Board of License Commissioners Director Terence Sheppard at tsheppard@co.pg.md.us with a few sentences and your name and address.
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This story is lacking any explanation about why the county liquor folks are challenging the license. A good reporter would have reached out to the county for a statement or at least the paper work for the challenge.
They should have to get a daycare license too the way some area parents use it as a toddler friendly place to ignore their children and get drunk.
Also stop making it feel like they’re a small business getting screwed by the county, this place prints money and what have they ever done for the community?
I agree with the first poster… This article is completely missing why the county alcohol board would be trying to take away the permit… also, if you could tell us when there’s a upcoming hearing… I’d like to be here to support a business that I’ve been going to regularly for 11 years.