Mart in beer and wine stalemate with Vineville neighborhood

The shelves are mostly empty inside a once bustling grocery store that’s nestled between Macon’s Vineville and Pleasant Hill neighborhoods.

Rajiv Gulati, 48, sat in a plastic booth in the back corner of the old Bateman & Wade store, watching a few customers smoke cigarettes and play an electronic gambling game.

Gulati opened up R and R Food Mart in the Clayton Street store back in September. The store borders the two neighborhoods and it’s at the cusp of a divide between class and race.

Though there were plenty advertisements for beer, the coolers were empty.

And if the Vineville Neighborhood Association has it’s way, they will stay empty.

“I’m just waiting,” Gulati said, adding that there was backlash from the neighborhood association when he advertised plans to get a beer and wine permit for the store. “I’m surviving over here because I don’t have no rent.”

The store is still owned by Krunal Patel, who pleaded guilty to four counts of commercial gambling in what was Bibb County’s largest-ever gambling raid in 2014.

Gulati said Patel is allowing him to stay in the store rent-free until he gets the beer and wine license. If Gulati doesn’t get the beer license, “I will walk away,” he said.

Concerns have centered on the thought that beer and wine contributed to both loitering and littering in the neighborhood surrounding the store.

Lars Anderson, local attorney and Vineville neighborhood association member, said the opposition to beer and wine sales isn’t going away.

Anderson is concerned that Patel is using “a straw man to bring back alcohol” and said trying to get an alcohol license is “a lost opportunity. They had it. They blew it. We will oppose it.”

“If they want to run a convenience store and ... be an integral part of the community, they’re welcome,” Anderson said. “On the other hand, if they’re just going to sell beer wine ... I don’t think that’s a valuable contribution to the neighborhood.”

Gulati said he’s looking to open up a store in Bloomfield if beer and wine sales are not an option.

This story was originally published May 5, 2017 at 8:07 PM with the headline "Mart in beer and wine stalemate with Vineville neighborhood."