Alcohol licenses in the city center and mobility action plan on the city’s agenda

Two Leelanau County wine producers will seek approval from Traverse City commissioners tonight (Monday) to offer wine tastings and wine and bottle sales downtown. MAWBY plans to partner with Mundos 305 on a wine/coffee bar concept at 305 West Front Street and Shady Lane Cellars is updating its permits for a shared tasting room with Grand Traverse Distillery at 215 East Front Street. Commissioners will also review the draft Mobility Action Plan tonight, part of the city’s new master plan update.

Alcohol licenses
Sparkling wine producer MAWBY is seeking approval for several permits that will allow the company to offer wine tastings, wine by the glass and bottle sales at Café Mundos 305 in the city center.

In a statement to The TickerMAWBY’s Peter Laing said the company wants to “bring coffee drinkers, wine connoisseurs and foodies together under one roof.” He continued, “Traverse City is a culinary destination. Mundos and MAWBY are excited to bring a wine and coffee bar concept with specialty food offerings to downtown, something we think the city will appreciate.”

Laing said the store will continue to be operated by Mundos, with wine tastings and bottle sales “seamlessly integrated into the store.” Customers will be able to “order any combination of Mundos coffee and food and MAWBY/bigLITTLE wine products from the same person in a single transaction,” Laing said. bigLittle, a boutique wine brand owned by Peter and Mike Laing, is located on the same property as MAWBY on Elm Valley Road in Suttons Bay.

Shady Lane Cellars will also be on the agenda tonight for the City Commission, which is applying for new, updated permits for the Grand Traverse Distillery tasting room on East Front Street. A selection of wines from Shady Lane Cellars – located on East Shady Lane in Suttons Bay – are already available for tasting and sale by the glass at the downtown tasting room.

“Nothing will change, we are just updating the permits,” says Kasey Wierzba, Executive Winemaker and General Manager. “The Michigan Liquor Control Commission requires that the permits for the shared off-premises tasting rooms all match, so we are updating our permits to match Grand Traverse Distillery’s. We are also updating our license to be a shared off-premises license with the MLCC, which requires local approval. We will continue to operate as we have been, with no changes.”

As part of the MLCC approval process, state law requires applicants to seek approval from the local legislative body, such as the city commission. So every time an applicant seeks a license in Traverse City, that application goes to the city commissioners and is placed on their agenda for approval. City commissioners earlier this month revisited the Healthier Drinking Culture, the city’s strategic plan adopted in 2021 that outlines ways to improve the city’s drinking culture. Commissioners said at that meeting they did not want to try to put a cap on the number of liquor licenses in certain blocks or neighborhoods in the city because that can be difficult to implement equitably and can lead to corporate monopolies. However, they agreed to periodically review the number and type of liquor licenses in the city to monitor and respond to trends.

Mobility Action Plan
As part of a series of meetings this summer to review the city’s new draft master plan – culminating in its scheduled adoption in September – commissioners tonight will review the Mobility Action Plan, a sub-plan that addresses transportation and mobility issues in the city.

The Mobility Action Plan uses both qualitative and quantitative data to tell “Traverse City’s mobility story,” according to presentation materials from city planning director Shawn Winter. Staff compiled annual average daily traffic volumes, maps of where Traverse City has (or lacks) existing infrastructure like bike lanes and sidewalks, and public input from residents on areas where they feel uncomfortable walking or biking.

People are “most uncomfortable and find it most difficult” on major arterial roads, Winter says, so those tend to be areas where more protected bike or pedestrian lanes — like the bike lane on Eighth Street — are needed. But such facilities would likely be overkill on a residential street like Webster Street, he notes. Because the types of improvements that would benefit a particular street depend on the conditions on that street — and those conditions can change over time — the Mobility Action Plan does not prescribe a list of recommended improvements for each street, but instead includes a matrix to help guide decisions when city government has the opportunity to remodel or improve a street.

“We didn’t want to say there’s only one option and then dictate it to a section of the map,” Winter explains. “When we have the opportunity for a project, the matrix helps us look at things like: how much money do we have, what is the traffic volume and speed in the corridor, what are the right-of-way restrictions and other factors that can help us make a decision.”

The plan includes “easy-to-achieve goals” that would be easy to implement in the near future — things like signage, painting and markings, Winter says — as well as opportunities for larger projects that could be included in the city’s Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) for long-term planning. Implementing the mobility action plan “is not going to happen overnight,” Winter says. “These are expensive improvements. But the City Commission has the opportunity to put its money where its priorities are, as it has done in the past with the sidewalk bonds. If the City Commission wants to do something like this again, we will design and implement it as quickly as they are willing to support the funding.”