Christina Davis, Boria’s mother and the proposed store’s namesake, asked the board to give her son a chance: “He deserves this,” she said. Boria and Kanya Kanh, who applied for a zoning exception for the store, presented Tuesday: “My goal is to operate a clean, safe and professional m anaged neighborhood convenience store,” Boria said to the Board of Zoning Appeals. A Branford resident’s application to open a convenience store across the street from a preschool on Goffe Street prompted pushback from neighbors who said they do not want or need another convenience store nearby. The applicant, Kanya Kanh, and another representative for the store, Kanh’s boyfriend Albert Boria, brought that convenience-store pitch to the Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) at City Hall on Tuesday night. Kanh has applied for a special exception “to permit convenience goods and services use” for the mixed-use building at 138 Goffe St. Neighbors proved skeptical, and debated the plan for almost an hour at Tuesday’s public hearing. The proposed store would be located roughly a block away from the Dr. Reginald Mayo Early Childhood School. It would also be located right next to St. Luke’s senior housing. According to their application, Kanh and Boria intend to sell “basic food items, cleaning supplies, sweets, and non-alcoholic beverages,” and do not intend to sell alcohol or tobacco. The BZA did not take a final vote on the zoning-relief application Tuesday. Instead, they referred the matter to the City Plan Commission for review. The BZA will then take the application up for a final vote next month.  A City Plan Department staff report recommends approval of the requested special exception, as long as the business operates only Monday through Saturday from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. and seats no more than six people. The City Plan Department found Kanh and Boria’s proposal to be “consistent” with the Vision 2034 Plan of Conservation of Development, by expanding entrepreneurship and “small business opportunities,” according to an advisory report sent to the BZA. As evidenced by Tuesday’s pushback, neighbors disagreed. Two applications to open convenience stores in the 138 Goffe St. building were denied zoning exceptions in 1994, which neighbors referred to during the meeting. Concerns about convenience stores in Dixwell have have been ongoing for decades. “We’ve got enough convenience stores around,” said Dwight Alder Frank Douglass in a Wednesday interview with the Independent. The store, he said, is “just not feasible. It doesn’t tie in with the neighborhood.” He said Kanh and Boria did not approach him before applying for the exception, which other neighbors criticized them for. In response to comments from Douglass and questions from the BZA, Boria argued that neighbors — especially residents of a nearby Goffe Street senior housing complex — need a store more accessible to neighbors than the Whalley Avenue Stop Shop or Family Dollar. Beaver Hills Alder Gary Hogan said he had heard “rumors” that the corner store might serve alcohol or tobacco, which the applicants said on Tuesday is not the case. Boria, who has never owned a business before, said no one advised him to reach out to an alder when planning to open the store. Hogan said at Tuesday’s hearing that he is “not in favor of the store as of yet.” He said he wanted to give the corner store applicants an opportunity to meet with alders, the neighborhood’s community management team, and the police district manager before continuing with the plan. Kanh, who addressed the board later in the meeting, said the Stop Shop and other stores nearby are on “extremely busy roads,” and that it is “hard for the elderly to cross the street.” She said her planned new convenience store — to be called Christina’s — would be an in-and-out store, not a fully stocked grocery store like Stop Shop. “I just feel like we’re being kind of encroached upon by these corner stores,” said Crystal Gooding, the chair of the Dixwell Community Management Team (DCMT). She added that Kanh and Boria did not approach the DCMT about the plan either.  Dwight resident Olivia Marston complained that Boria put a sign up for the store at 138 Goffe without approval. A photo of a sign at 138 Goffe St. for Christina’s Corner Store, included in Kanh’s application. Boria’s mother, Christina Davis — the store’s namesake — her husband John Davis, and Boria’s uncle James Woods spoke at the hearing in support of the proposal. “It’s not about trapping people and controlling when they can and can’t do,” he said during the hearing. “It’s about allowing people to show that they’re worth it.” Despite this, Boria purported to have support from Dixwell neighbors. He presented what he said was a petition signed by about 50 neighbors in support of the store, which BZA members examined. Neighbor Alex Taylor, joining the meeting from Zoom, said that the sheet was not a petition but instead a raffle for a free TV.  Boria did not deny Taylor’s claim. He said the raffle “was me doing something for the community, not to be thrown in my face.” Not all signatures were for the raffle, he said. “I believe nothing,” Taylor said. “I’ve lived in this neighborhood for 40 years. I fight for this neighborhood every single day. There is no doubt in my mind what this is going to turn into.” The post Convenience Store Proposal Debated appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less