Council to Reconsider Action Taken on Oct. 6th
By Doug Dalager
Empty space in Super One complex in East End Superior slated for liquor store
Councilor Graham Garfield has requested that the City reconsider action taken at the October 6th Council meeting to deny a liquor license to Super One Liquor, located at 2202 E. 2nd Street, adjacent to the recently developed Superior One grocery store.
The Super One liquor license application has been rejected by the Common Council for two years running now. Last meeting the vote was 5-2 in favor, however it takes 6 yes votes to approve a license. At the last vote, two councilors abstained from voting due to conflict of interests; Mike Herrick (8th District) is an employee of Super One, and Denise McDonald (5th District) is an employee of Belknap Liquor. Absent from voting was Councilor Warren Bender, who has previously stated he was not in favor of granting the license.
Councilors Dan Olson (1st District) and Graham Garfield (6th District) voted against the resolution at the last meeting. Olson stated that he didn’t see anything new in the license application that wasn’t there last year, and so chose to vote against it again (he also voted against the license in 2014). Garfield, citing concerns raised by constituents, asked the Council to table the vote until the next meeting, but was voted down. As a result, he voted against it, but vowed to bring the issue up again at the next meeting.
Management of Super One, Miner’s Inc. has submitted 177 pages of signatures on a petition requesting that the City approve the liquor license. A total of 2482 signatures supporting their application have been collected and are on file with the City Clerk’s Office. It has been noted by City administration officials that declining the application for this liquor license is an unusual departure for the Common Council, and that in light of the large investment made by Miner’s Inc. in the City of Superior, it would be in the City’s best interests to approve the license.
A source close to the City is predicting that tonight’s vote will be 6-2 in favor of approving the liquor license for Super One. Herrick and McDonald are expected to abstain again, Bender is expected to vote against, and Garfield is expect to change his vote in favor of approval, provided of course the Council agrees to take up the issue again.
It has also be pointed out that the decision to deny the license would likely not survive a court case. Historically, Superior has required that every liquor license in the city have a bar with a minimum of six stools, even if the primary operation is that of a liquor store. This step was taken years ago as a means of preventing Walmart from opening up a large liquor store, which would conceivably make it difficult for the smaller, independent operations that proliferate in Superior to stay in business. Superior is one of only two municipalities in the entire state to have taken this route to protect small operators.
Much of the dispute about this license centers on so-called “gentlemen’s agreements” that were made at the time that the new Super One was built in the East End. One reputed promise was that the existing Super One in the Belknap Plaza would remain open. In fact, that store was emptied out six months prior to the end of its lease, and has been vacant ever since. In the meantime, the Belknap Plaza property has been listed by its owners for sale at an asking price of $4 million.
Another promise reported by Walter Haugen, owner of Pudge’s Bar in East End was that in return for a land trade between his property and Miner’s, Inc., he was assured that there was no intention of seeking a liquor license in the new grocery store property.
It should be noted that Councilor Jack Sweeney (4th District) represents the East End area where the proposed license would be located, and he has surveyed most of the businesses in the area. He asserts that they have indicated overwhelming support for granting a liquor license to Super One. He has also stated that he did not believe it was his job as a Councilor to control private businesses, and therefore has supported approval of this license.
In light of the dispute centering on competition towards small bars, it is ironic that Miner’s Inc. traces its roots to the 1943 opening of a small Grand Rapids tavern by Anton and Ida Miner. The couple began selling milk and bread when they saw a market for the items. They later built the family’s first grocery store, Miner’s Market, along U.S. Highway 2.
In 1954, the store was renamed Piggly Wiggly. The family opened a second store in Virginia in 1963 — which Jim Miner ran for several years before moving to Duluth, where the company had opened a third store in the Woodland neighborhood in 1965. Several more stores followed by 1975, when Tony and Ida Miner retired and Jim Miner became the company’s president.
The next year — seeing the developing trend of bigger, warehouse-type supermarkets, Jim opened the company’s first such store in Cloquet. In 1977, the store was renamed Super One Foods — the first of many. Jim Miner passed away at the age of 77 in 2011.
At the root of talk about gentlemen’s agreements are discussions that apparently included Jim prior to his passing. His family has stated that they were not party to any such agreements. It should be noted that there is no documentation of an agreement by Miner’s, Inc. about not seeking a liquor license in the East End store. The other Super One grocery store in Superior is located near downtown on Oakes Avenue, and while there is not a liquor store inside that building, Miner’s, Inc. did build leases to Mark Casper the building that houses Keyport Liquor.
