SUZANNE ROOK, Senior Reporter
Posted: Friday, September 12, 2008 10:32 pm

The days of foot-dragging and hand-wringing about a new liquor store appear to be over for the city council.

The Occupational Health and Safety Administration has given the city a little more than six months to pick a new liquor store site or make $125,000 in repairs to its Fifth Street store, built in 1957.

Human Resources Director Elizabeth Wheeler, in a Sept. 10 memo to city councilors, reported that OSHA wants Northfield to have a deed to a site, approved building plans and a “firm date to break ground” by March 31. If not, Wheeler wrote, OSHA requires an interior stairway be widened and an electrical panel be made accessible.

OSHA inspectors, during a routine inspection in June, found the stairway, with a conveyor system that runs along it, too narrow. The electrical panel, which sits above the conveyor, is difficult to access, inspectors said, and could cause serious problems if power needs to be shut off quickly.

View the letter to city councilors from Human Resources Director Elizabeth Wheeler here.

Former City Administrator Al Roder had said it will be difficult to remedy the violations.The building old and there is little room to expand on its current site. And, the conveyor is the most expedient way for products to be moved from underground storage to the sales floor.

The city is working on finding a new site. In August the council agreed to ask developers and downtown property owners submit proposals for the sale of their property and/or for a development of a site.

Interim City Administrator Joel Walinski said he expects the Request For Proposals to go out next week.

The request asks that proposals include specific costs. Parcels must be able to accommodate a store with a 7,000-square-foot minimum footprint on the main level, easily allow deliveries, located near a major city artery and be visible from the street.

Walinski expects proposals will be returned, scored and presented to the council sometime in December.

Wheeler, in her letter, said OSHA reduced its initial fines to the city, from $4,500 to $2,025 because the city quickly abated four other violations: incomplete medical records, an insufficient eye wash at the city pool and missing floor covers at the wastewater treatment plant.


— Suzanne Rook can be reached at srook@northfieldnews.com or 645-1113.