Is that the consent calendar?
Second.
OK.
Commissioner Anderson?
Yes.
Commissioner Cowen?
Yes.
Commissioner Strongman?
Yes.
Commissioner Kwok?
Yes.
Vice Chair Klaw?
Yes.
Chair needing.
What is this set up?
I can't find my button.
Pardon me.
So there are two opportunities to provide public comments.
The first is during the item of the agenda
as it pertains to the agenda, and the second
as if the comment is not on the agenda
but within the purview of the Planning Commission.
So are there any public communications?
I'm gonna say no.
And any ex parte communications, lots of nos.
So now I'm gonna go ahead and open up the public item
for the public hearing portion,
which is Chevron Concurrent Sales of Gas and Alcohol,
CUP application Y2619 located at 2895 North Main Street
and it looks like we have a presentation from staff.
Yes, good evening planning commissioners.
My name is Gerardo Victoria,
Associate Planner Community Development.
The project before you today is the Chevron Extra Mile
concurrent sales of gasoline and alcohol
at 2895 North Main Street application Y26019.
Some site context, the existing service station
is located here where a yellow is supposed to be a star,
so I apologize, so that yellow star is located.
The existing convenience market is just to the left of it.
It is located off North Main Street and Gary Road,
surrounded by a mix of commercial uses.
Eating and drinking establishments,
you see the Burger King directly to the south.
And a little bit further south, you have the Chick-fil-A.
There's also the Volvo dealership
and the senior housing community
located to the west right there.
The general plan designation is service commercial.
The zoning designation is service commercial.
Service stations with concurrent sales of gasoline
and alcohol are permitted with approval
of a conditional use permit.
One quick thing, there is an amended agenda report.
Sunnyvale Avenue located right here
on page five of the agenda.
I noted it was Buena Vista Avenue, so I apologize for that.
So that's been amended to say Sunnyvale Avenue, as there is a church located over here.
As you can see, the would-be star, this is where the Chevron is located.
So this is the business plan for the service station for the Chevron Extra Mile.
They have 300 extra mile stores in California, about 140 of those sell alcohol.
This is a type 21 license for off-site consumption.
The previous license was a type 20 for beer and wine only.
The type 21 is for distilled spirits.
They are open for 24 hours daily.
They have a layout of restrooms, a snack area, and a beer and wine area.
Security measures that Chevron has is they employ two to four employees per shift.
Their alcohol display area is approximately 39 square feet.
They will lock their alcohol between the hours of 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. daily.
They do have signage all over the site that says no loitering, no open containers.
They do have 12 to 15 security cameras on site, and they store surveillance video for
up to 30 days, and all of their employees undergo ABC training.
So this is the existing floor plan, as you can see here.
This is the entrance, and this is the wine rack, the beer sales, the snack area, and
the recharge station with the restrooms located in the back there.
So just a bit of history.
The Board of Zoning Adjustment in 1968 issued a use permit to Standard Oil for the service
station, and this is the floor plan back then where they have a freshman area in a sales
area.
The use permit was issued in 1968 but not for gasoline or alcohol sales.
These are the standard conditional use permit findings for the project as outlined in the
draft resolution with the additional findings also outlined in the draft resolution.
So staff moves to adopt the secret determination and approve the conditional use permit based
on the findings outlined in the draft resolution to allow the concurrent sales of gasoline
and alcohol at the Chevron at 2895 North Main Street.
Staff is available for questions.
The applicant, Mr. Steve Rawlings,
is also available to answer any questions.
Thank you so much.
Are there any questions for staff?
It was one note, and you did confirm it in here,
when I was reading the staff report,
is the fact that they had been selling
previously beer and wine. Correct.
I didn't realize there was a 20 and a 21.
If there's no more questions for staff, then I'll go ahead and open up the public hearing.
Hi.
Good evening, everybody.
My name is Steve Rawlings.
I'm here on behalf of Chevron Stations, Inc.
For the record, we do concur with the staff's recommendation and do agree to all of the
draft conditions of approval that are presented to you this evening.
I wanted to emphasize just a couple things.
This is a corporate owned store, it's been a corporate owned store, and many chevrons
that you see up and down the state are franchisees, but the corporate chevron station, Inc., a
little more than 300 stores in California that they own and operate, and they take great
pride in, and oftentimes they own the real estate with it as well, so they take great
pride in the maintenance of it, and this store has been, you know, we haven't had any issues
at this particular store and would just like the opportunity to be able to add to the product
line.
So with that I'm available for any questions anybody might have.
Perfect.
Does anybody have questions for the applicant?
Oh, yes.
Hi.
All right.
Thank you for being here today.
I was curious to know looking over the business plan as well as the conditions of approval,
So in the business plan it had mentioned the sales will be prohibited or cease from 2 a.m.
to 6 a.m. in the morning.
Correct.
But in the what page was it?
The coolers would lock on the page what page is this?
One, two, three, four.
Okay.
The top of page four says any coolers containing alcoholic beverages will automatically lock
at 12 a.m. and unlock at 6 a.m. daily so is that the current practice or is it to adjust
to 2 a.m.?
It would be adjusted to 2 a.m. that may have been a typo on our part there and they are
just an automatic locking thing it's on a timer it locks you can't manually override
it and then at 6 a.m. they'll unlock just an extra measure also on the point of sale
system if you try to scan an alcoholic product after 2 a.m. it won't allow you to complete
the transaction.
So they use a two way method to make sure we're not continuing to sell after 2 a.m.
And then the other question is in the bay area would you know this how many extra miles
have type 21 licenses already?
I knew you were going to ask that and I was trying to go through my head.
Okay. I know I've done them in, I'm trying to think of Brentwood, I know that we have one there, I know a couple others in Contra Costa County, I believe that the store in Livermore might have it and I knew you were going to ask and I apologize, I'm not, I do know that we're approaching about 20, over 20 stores in California that have them.
San Rafael. I think we have one. Anyway, I'm at a loss, but this is not the
first time we've, you know, done this up in the Greater Bay Area. It's a trend
that is being followed by AMPM as well, and then some other lesser-known
companies. United Pacific, which operates a series of stores called Rocket
Convenience Stores, who happen to have like 400 stores in the state of
California they're following suit the loop neighborhood markets which is based here in the Bay Area they are also they have about
160 stores and they're following suit with trying to add a little bit of a product line
And so I'm staying pretty busy
So then this one would be the first one for Walnut Creek as far as Chevron's are yes, okay. Got it
All right. Thank you so much. I appreciate the explanations
I was just thinking about the safety of the neighborhood and you know access to
alcohol and I noticed that your business plan has is talking about the mostly the
ready-to-drink the RTD drinks which are approximately the same alcohol level
as like a beer or wine right but you are also gonna have the distilled stronger
alcoholic beverages in a locked cabinet behind behind the cashier okay and it is
a two foot by two foot you know cabinet so it's not this huge you know
liquor display or anything like that and we do inventory that but again it's
it's in the back of the store but you know as I mentioned the driver on this
are those ready to drinks it's the one alcoholic product line that is actually
growing in popularity I don't know if you've read the articles about Napa
Valley and the closures and the bankruptcies there's less demand for it
and even in the beer space that we've seen the craft a lot of craft breweries
closed now too so and obviously that's affecting retailers you know I've known
some of my convenience store clients they used to have say four cooler doors
with beer in it and they've been cutting those back it's like well there's no
sense of inventory that will put more monster energy drinks or you know
whatever else in there so they're inventorying so the you know request is
is that, hey, there is a product line that is continuing
to be popular.
And it's not like we're adding a bunch of square footage.
We're literally going to take some beer out and some wine
out and just replace it with this particular product
because it seems to be popular.
And the most popular of those brands
are not much different than what you're going to find in beer.
And as we know, wine has an alcohol by volume
that can be 14, 15, and we're already selling that product.
but these ready to drinks are in that same general age,
the popular ones are.
Thank you.
Any other?
Oh, yes.
I just wanna thank you for a very detailed business plan
which was really helpful in understanding your operation
and also for the years of performance
where the police say no problems.
So good job, thank you very much.
Well, we appreciate that.
We pride ourselves on that.
So good to hear.
Vice Chair Klop stole what I was gonna say.
because it was when my husband and I both read it,
and I was like, wow, he even had the photos.
Because I was like, what is a writer doing?
Yeah, you're not used to hearing that term,
but we all became familiar with White Claws.
They got real popular about 10 years ago.
And they were made malt-based, which is kind of a beer-based
or wine-based.
And you can sell that with a Type 20 license.
ABC, though, says, ah, you got a little ingredient
called distilled spirits.
Hence, therefore, you need this type 21.
And there was a bill that went through
trying to change that, saying, hey,
if we measure by alcohol by volume,
but the state legislator shot it down.
And so that's why we're having to request the type 21.
And the type 21s are expensive.
They cost us money.
We have to actually purchase them.
Whereas a beer and wine license,
you can just go down to ABC and, you know, pay your $2,000 and you can get one here.
You got to go actually onto the open market and this county is not particularly expensive
but you go into a place like Sonoma County and they're $250,000.
So some people ask me, well, how come every Chevron doesn't have this yet?
And I'm like, well, because we're located in San Joaquin County, I think it's $175,000.
So obviously there is a return on investment.
And certainly, I don't think anybody's
been able to justify $250,000 to be able to add this product.
But if you can get it in a certain range,
then you can make some economic sense out of it.
More than you wanted to know, but it's a useless trivia
at a cocktail party.
Yeah, to me, that was the same thing I saw.
I was like, police, the fact the training, the locked,
if you're under 30 and then the mystery shopper could come.
I I thought that was pretty cool to.
And when I saw the that the police said there's been nothing here
and they even gave those.
So anything else for our applicant?
OK, thank you so much. Thank you.
I received no public speaker cards, so I don't think there's any more.
So with that, I'm going to close the public hearing
and now bring it to the commission for discussions, questions, and or a motion.
Does the motion have to include language about CEQA?
Or is it just buried in the resolution?
It does not. OK, so then, OK, great.
So then I would like to move approval of the draft resolution for concurrent sales of gasoline and alcohol.
of the Chevron Station Conditional Use Permit Application
Number Y2619 at 2895 North Main Street.
Second.
Okay, Commissioner Anderson.
Yes.
Commissioner Cown.
Yes.
Commissioner Strongman.
Yes.
Commissioner Kwok.
Yes.
Vice Chair Klaw.
Yes.
Chair Needing.
Yes.
And the motion passes.
The motion passes and now any items five and six,
any considerations or announcements from folks,
staff, commission?
Oh, yes, Commissioner Gao.
I just had a brief comment.
I was able to attend the Habitat for Humanity Build weekend
and was just so impressed.
And so I wanna say thank you to our city staff
and city council who've collaborated so well
with this fabulous nonprofit organization
to bring a really wonderful project to our city.
Wow, I love that.
Thank you for bringing that up.
Any?
Nope, okay.
With that, we adjourn.
Thank you so much.