Unity is one step closer to being home to the second Walmart location in Pennsylvania to sell beer and wine.
Township supervisors have approved a restaurant liquor license transfer for the Colony Lane store off Route 30, which now must be greenlighted by the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board. Walmart hopes to have the cafe in place by fall, said Jason Klipa, the retail giant’s director of government relations in Pennsylvania.
Klipa told supervisors the cafe and coolers will be placed at the rear of the store, replacing an area where soda now is displayed.
The space for alcohol sales would be segregated by a divider and is part of an overall remodeling plan for the store. Klipa did not have details concerning other changes that will be part of the makeover.
He said the recent addition of a pick-up area for online grocery orders was a change made in advance of the remodel.
The cafe will offer eat-in food and seating for 30 people to comply with the requirements of the restaurant license. It will not have taps for serving beer, Klipa said.
“It’s not going to be treated like a bar,” he said. “In most of these cases, with grocery stores, it’s serving the purpose of to-go beer, to-go wine.”
Shauna Boscaccy, a Walmart lawyer, said the restaurant license requires anyone drinking beer in the cafe to also order food.
Alcohol sales at Walmart’s first cafe in the state, opened in November in Uniontown, have been “great thus far, and we expect the same in Latrobe,” Klipa said. “Western Pennsylvania, for Walmart, is just a fantastic market. It made more sense for us to have the first few (cafes) be in the western part of the state.”
Next up for alcohol sales is Altoona, Klipa said.
Walmart intends to operate the Unity cafe with a dormant restaurant liquor license transferred from New Kensington, one of five such licenses it bought at a state auction in September. Other licences are from Beaver Falls, Erie, Tyrone and Irvona, Clearfield County.
According to state law, purchases are limited to 192 ounces of malt beverages and three liters of wine per customer.
