Just as one local mall gets the nod from the state to allow visitors to drink alcoholic beverages while they shop, a cross-town rival has scrapped its plans to implement a similar policy on its premises.
Short Pump Town Center will not be getting one of the Virginia ABC’s commercial lifestyle center licenses, which would have permitted visitors to consume boozy beverages purchased from the mall’s restaurants while walking around the mall.
“We are not moving forward (with the license) at this time,” a spokeswoman for New York-based firm Brookfield Properties, one of the mall’s co-owners, said in an email.
The spokeswoman declined to provide further comment.
The mall had filed an application for an open-container permit about a year ago and said it hoped to implement the program by last spring.
Had it been approved, the ABC license would have allowed on-premises drinking by visitors in the mall’s common areas, but only drinks purchased from restaurant tenants cleared to sell alcoholic beverages. The drinks would have been required to be served in disposable to-go cups.
On the other side of the James River, Stony Point Fashion Park recently secured the ABC’s approval to implement its own open-container policy. The mall’s owner, Florida-based Second Horizon, sees the open-container policy as a way to drive more activity at the mall, which has in recent years struggled to retain tenants and attract customers.
Short Pump Town Center added Vineyard Vines, which relocated from Stony Point, to its lineup this year. In June, Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery shuttered its Short Pump outpost, which had operated for nearly a decade.
Just as one local mall gets the nod from the state to allow visitors to drink alcoholic beverages while they shop, a cross-town rival has scrapped its plans to implement a similar policy on its premises.
Short Pump Town Center will not be getting one of the Virginia ABC’s commercial lifestyle center licenses, which would have permitted visitors to consume boozy beverages purchased from the mall’s restaurants while walking around the mall.
“We are not moving forward (with the license) at this time,” a spokeswoman for New York-based firm Brookfield Properties, one of the mall’s co-owners, said in an email.
The spokeswoman declined to provide further comment.
The mall had filed an application for an open-container permit about a year ago and said it hoped to implement the program by last spring.
Had it been approved, the ABC license would have allowed on-premises drinking by visitors in the mall’s common areas, but only drinks purchased from restaurant tenants cleared to sell alcoholic beverages. The drinks would have been required to be served in disposable to-go cups.
On the other side of the James River, Stony Point Fashion Park recently secured the ABC’s approval to implement its own open-container policy. The mall’s owner, Florida-based Second Horizon, sees the open-container policy as a way to drive more activity at the mall, which has in recent years struggled to retain tenants and attract customers.
Short Pump Town Center added Vineyard Vines, which relocated from Stony Point, to its lineup this year. In June, Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery shuttered its Short Pump outpost, which had operated for nearly a decade.