The Board of Selectmen should award the beer and wine license requested by General Store owner Lyn Horowitz, and deny the license requested by Robert Hirsch. While acknowledging that Horowitz’s spouse Adam is an owner of the Harvard Press, we take this position solely from the standpoint of the best interests of the town and its residents.

After a year of study and by vote of Town Meeting, the Economic Development Analysis Team (EDAT) was appointed to determine how to better utilize Harvard’s under-developed commercial district. Neither a survey taken at Town Meeting nor a more recent survey of north Harvard residents identified a package store as a need. Respondents in both surveys said they would like to see a small grocery store in town. 

Attracting development of a store might be enhanced if it could include availability of a beer and wine license. If the town has already spent that valuable asset on a small operation in a strip mall, that incentive will no longer exist. If a grocery store developer came along later, it would not make sense to award the last license to a second Ayer Road operation in close proximity.

We think the selectmen should award the General Store the license it seeks. The store is already an asset to the revitalization of town center, and it was a license specifically for the store that Town Meeting voters thought they were authorizing. The town should hold off on awarding a second license until EDAT has completed its analysis and, hopefully, has attracted a proposal for a full-service grocery store, possibly including beer and wine.