January 2012
NEWS
The Southwest Portland Post • 7
Cellar Door wine shop draws opposition from neighbors;
South Portland NA board recommends liquor license approval
By Lee Perlman
The Southwest Portland Post
To hear owners Karen Hinsdale and
Michael Price describe it, their Cellar
Door wine shop, with occasional tast-
ings, will be the lowest key commercial
operation imaginable.
Neighbors nearby aren’t so sure.
Price plans to set up his financial
services business at 4525 SW Condor
Ave. in a commercial building last used
as the offices of an architectural firm.
Hinsdale, his wife, will move her Cel-
lar Door fine wine retailing business
from Southwest 16 th Avenue where she
has operated since 1994.
Price’s business will close at 4 p.m.
daily, he told the South Portland
Neighborhood Association last month,
while the Cellar Door will hold tastings
from 3:30 to 7 p.m. weekdays.
Hinsdale said her customers would
be tasting wines selling for $20 a bottle
or more. “In 16 years I have never had
a police or (Oregon Liquor Control
Commission) complaint,” she said.
“My reputation is my most valued
possession.”
They are neighbors to Seventh Day
Adventist Tabernacle Church but, Price
said, because of the different hours of
operation alone there should be no
conflict. Several friends and associates
testified to the business’s quality and
the couple’s good character.
A neighbor, Norman Malbin, had a
different perspective. Parking on the
street is very congested, he said, and
although the business has its own
16-space lot, “I can’t help but think
there’ll be overflow. If we have one
party on the street, we’re full up.”
Malbin envisioned young children
“darting between cars” into the path of
Crime prevention specialist Stepha-
nie Adams said that the City of Port-
land had made no recommendation on
the liquor license application for the
property, which she said is the practice
where there is controversy but no overt
reason to deny a license.
South Portland board member Kerry
Chipman told opponents, “It’s not
proper to call this a ‘liquor establish-
ment.’ They’re not selling Mad Dog
wine to transients. This is an urban
neighborhood that is seeking to be
vibrant. I can see no rational basis to
oppose this.”
Instead, Chipman moved to endorse
the liquor license request, and the mo-
tion passed by a vote of seven to two.
drivers “young and inebriated.”
Another neighbor, Jamie St. Mark,
agreed that the street is “very small
and very congested. The real issue is
alcohol being drunk while little chil-
dren, cats and dogs are in the street.”
She envisioned havoc from visitors
who have consumed enough to “get
a buzz.”
A church representative disputed
Price’s statement that business and
church activities would not overlap,
saying that the church has activities at
times other than Sundays. Yet another
neighbor said, “I have nothing against
(Hinsdale’s) business, it looks perfectly
acceptable to me, but it’s not a good fit
for this block.”
NEIGHBORHOOD NEWS
(Continued from Page 6)
tivists fear what such reductions
might mean for them.
At last month’s Southwest
Neighborhoods Inc. board meet-
ing, transportation chair Roger
Averbeck said that a one-time
appropriation of $16 million for
new sidewalks, of which half
would go to East Portland and
half to Southwest, made “an easy
target” since it is not part of a
regular bureau budget.
Averbeck asked the SWNI
board to write a letter asking for
the allocation to be retained, and
the board agreed to do so.
Kirky Doblie, chair of the South-
west Parks Committee, feared
that the park bureau would sac-
rifice the Fulton Park Community
Center, the oldest and smallest
such facility in the system.
Not only is the facility well
used, Doblie said, but also its
elimination would put great
pressure on the facilities of the
Multnomah Center and South-
west Community Center at Ga-
briel Park, both of which are
strained to capacity. Again, the
SWNI board agreed to argue
against the cut.
SWNI land use chair John Gib-
bon reported upon an issue relat-
ing to sewer lines. A change in
the City’s plumbing code in 2006
made it illegal to have sewer lines
shared by separate single-family
residences, or that are located in
the public right of way.
This made some 4,500 systems
citywide into code violations.
“The good news is that most of
them are in the inner east side;
Karen Hinsdale is moving her Cellar
Door wine shop to South Portland.
(Photo courtesy Cellar Door)
there are 350 at most in south-
west,” Gibbon said.
The bad news is that under
current procedures, the cost to
homeowners of fixing the offend-
ing system would average $9,000
per household, and in some cases
would be as high as $20,000. Until
the problem is corrected, Gibbon
said, the property owner “can’t
sell, upgrade or refinance the
house.”
A new proposal would have the
City assume most of the burden
for correcting the problem, at a
total cost of $4 million. Individual
property owners would be liable
only for the branch fee, at a maxi-
mum cost of $4,800.
Glenn Bridger of Hillsdale
called for support of this ap-
proach, saying it seemed like “the
most equitable solution.” The
SWNI board agreed.
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