Local Goods Chicago planning to sell liquor

by BRIAN NADIG

Local Goods Chicago gift shop, 5422 W. Devon Ave., is planning to become the second business in Downtown Edgebrook to sell packaged liquor.

"We’ve had a lot of customers asking for a local spirit or a bottle of craft beer to give as a gift," said store owner Laura Guenther, who opened the shop 4 1/2 years ago. The only other business in the area to sell packaged liquor is Happy Foods, 6415 N. Central Ave.

Local Goods offers items such as jewelry, clothing and artwork that are made in Chicago. Some of the items are sold on consignment, and in other instances the creator of the items leases space inside the store.

Guenther said that the store’s liquor license application could be approved in about a month and that liquor sales would be an accessory use for the store. The store’s main revenue would be from non-alcohol sales. She said that she has not received any negative feedback on the application since notice of it was recently posted at the shop’s entrance.

The liquor section would have locally made beers and spirits along with a variety of domestic wines. Products from the Few Spirits and Koval liquor distilleries and the Une Annee and Half Acre Beer Company breweries are among the items expected to be on the shelves, Guenther said.

Alcohol sales were prohibited in the Devon-Central business district from 1947 until the dry status was lifted in about half of the commercial area in 2003. The block where Local Goods is located became wet in 2006 after a property owner on the block initiated a petition drive to get the liquor ban lifted.

The owner had acquired property on the block with the intent to open a sports bar, but he later found out that the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners mistakenly had the block listed as wet, prompting efforts to get a referendum placed on the Nov. 7, 2006, ballot. Even though residents voted overwhelmingly to overturn the ban, the sports bar never opened.