There is an empty asphalt lot at the intersection of Tunnel Boulevard and Shallowford Road, and that’s where Rajesh Chaudhari wants to build a convenience store – a Kanku’s, specifically, say neighbors of the lot.
Chaudhari has requested a zoning change on the property which would allow for beer sales. His proposed store will not sell gas, just food and some drug items, like the new Kanku’s on M. L. King Boulevard.
He is asking for the property to be rezoned to C-2 Convenience Commercial zoning, from its existing C-5 Neighborhood Commercial zoning.
Planning commissioners will discuss the zoning request and make a recommendation for city leaders at 1 p.m. Monday at the Hamilton County Courthouse.
The Regional Planning Agency staff is recommending that planners deny the request.
Twenty years ago, planners laid down C-5 Neighborhood Commercial zoning along several neighborhood blocks in the area because there were problems with “the amount of traffic generated on Wilcox Road and Tunnel Boulevard and the proliferation of adult-oriented establishments and clubs allowed in the C-2 Convenience Commercial Zone,” states RPA documents.
The C-5 Neighborhood zoning was introduced to “promote commercial uses that complement the residential area and to prevent alcohol-related commercial activities,” the staff recommendation continues.
Everyone in the neighborhood knows what that means.
“Because of Jahara,” said Shon Stephens, owner of Just Kutts barber shop.
Jahara has been closed at least 10 years, the best anyone can remember, but its reputation hasn’t faded.
“Jahara Lounge, yes,” said Robert Schreane, chairman of the North Brainerd Community Council on Thursday. “That was closed down years ago, and they had a mixed-drink law there.”
When the club closed, “the community sort of worked to ban any future sales of alcohol in that community,” he said.
The solution was the C-5 Neighborhood zoning, which explicitly prohibits “the playing of music” loud enough to be heard from any residential lot nearby; “the sale or consumption of beer, wine, and similar alcoholic beverages on the premises”; “adult-oriented establishments”; and liquor stores, among other things.
Two decades since the zoning, the Tunnel Boulevard-Shallowford Road intersection is quiet. Frank’s One-Stop Market is nearby, but it has been in place since the early 1960s, and its beer sales were grandfathered in.
These days, not much changes in these parts. Some businesses come, more businesses go.
Stephens has been in operation for three years next-door to the proposed new convenience store. He said someone came two months ago and tore down the old garage at the Shallowford-Tunnel intersection but didn’t say anything to him.
He also said numerous businesses have fought the alcohol prohibition on this strip of Tunnel Boulevard over the years and lost. It would be a betrayal of all those people if this new convenience store is allowed to sell beer while others aren’t, he said.
“It’ll be unfair if they let them, because they’ve already turned down so many other folks,” Stephens said.
Some say there’s no need for another Kanku’s, considering there is one less than a mile away on Wilcox Boulevard.
“Right now, most of the community feels that there are enough convenience stores located along that stretch there,” said Schreane.
He wants more time to talk things over with residents and the developer to see if a convenience store is actually best for the community, beer sales or not.
Darnell Moss, owner of Moss Place catering, meanwhile has been located at the Shallowford-Tunnel Boulevard intersection for almost 12 years, and he said that new life and construction is welcome.
“I really feel like it’ll make the area better. I feel good about it,” he said.
Moss feeds thousands of office workers a week through his business and tried some time ago to do the same for the Tunnel Boulevard community.
He opened a full, sit-down restaurant, but the neighborhood didn’t come eat. The restaurant sat empty, losing $5,000 a month.
So Moss closed the doors, and now it sits locked up and quiet day in and day out.
“The area just needs to be redeveloped,” Moss said while unloading produce and carting it into his storefront.
If a Kanku’s is how redevelopment starts, so be it — but the neighborhood is going to have to get past its 20-year-old prohibition to get from bleak to better, said Moss.
“They way I look at it, it shouldn’t be a problem,” he said.
Contact staff writer Alex Green at agreen@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6480.