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The Town of Kensington is supporting a proposed change in its liquor laws that would expand the pockets in which alcoholic beverages can be served as well as decrease the number of seats required for a business to qualify for such a license.

The expansion would allow liquor licenses to be issued on Kensington Parkway and Frederick Avenue from Montgomery Avenue to Silver Creek, where they are not currently allowed, as well as decrease the capacity required for such a license from 40 seats to 20. The change would ostensibly benefit only one business in town and business owners with a store located in the same complex are asking for the liquor laws to be loosened further so they can sell carryout beer and wine.

Andre Cavallaro, owner of Sub*Urban Trading Company, an organic catering and carry-out business, first approached Mayor Peter Fosselman about changing the law so he would be eligible for a liquor license. He wants to add a maximum of 40 seats to build a "bistro concept."

"We'd like to bring another restaurant into the town of Kensington," Cavallaro said at the Feb. 9 meeting at which the Town Council voted in support of the change. The law must be approved by the full Maryland Delegation, but has already passed muster with the Montgomery County Delegation.

In the same complex as Sub*Urban Trading Company is the Old Town Market, 10251 Kensington Parkway, where owners Rob and Suzy Cooper would like to sell high-end wines and micro-brews. At the meeting where they supported the new law, Rob Cooper asked the council why it was seen as in keeping with the town character to allow people to drink on the premises and leave "intoxicated," but not to buy alcohol to take home to drink. He called the notion "hypocritical."

His wife, Suzy, said she and Rob have worked hard to clean up the image of the market. Many in town still have the aftertaste of its former incarnation as a run-down 7-Eleven, and Suzy said the specter of drunken vagrants smashing bottles in the parking lots — an image raised at the meeting — are simply not what she has in mind. The Coopers have done extensive remodeling of the convenience store, and serve fresh-baked breads, soups and other market items.

"They're talking about ‘the riffraff,'" Suzy Cooper said, adorning the word with air quotes. "It's not that scale. (We want) just some nice wines, small selection, some beer, no singles."

Cooper said she's already taken a $20,000 financial hit to clean up the place by getting rid of Keno, and would like to forego lottery ticket sales "but we can't afford the income loss right now."

Cooper also said she would close the shop by 9 p.m., two hours earlier than the 11 p.m. last call outlined in the law, and would submit to any other similar stipulations to be allowed to sell alcohol.

Fosselman said the Coopers may be catering to more upscale imbibers, but he has concerns that carry-out legislation would open Pandora's box for other business that do not.

"I don't think that's what the community is looking for, I think the community would support a high-end wine store, but how do you put that in a law? You can't say no Mad Dog or, you know, no Boone's Farm," Fosselman said, referring to cheap, low-end wines. "I'm not sure a bill can be crafted that way."

"The community commands a higher end of wine," Fosselman said. "It's not to be a snob."

He called the future of carry-out sales in town "highly unlikely but not impossible."

Cooper is more hopeful though, and is collecting signatures on a petition to consider introduction of legislation to allow carry-out alcohol sales in town, and currently has more than 100 signatures.

"I can't tell you how many people have come in here, they're going to a dinner or it's a Sunday football game, ‘Do you have beer and wine?'" Cooper said. "And it's ‘Nope, sorry, maybe someday.'"