There's a new, privately owned bottle shop, Downtown Spirits, at 7th & Bell in what used to be the State of Washington's highest grossing store. Under the bizarre system employed by the WSLCB, every licensee was assigned to a retail outlet. The store at 7th & Bell, pictured above, got most of the downtown hotels and bars, but it had virtually no retail traffic.
That's about to change. According to the Downtown Spirits website, www.downtown-spirits.com, you can now enter your order online and pick it up two hours later. There will be a rotating offer of discounted spirits, and a 7,000-bottle wine cellar. Downtown Spirits is also angling to be the distributor for existing Class H licensees, who should be attracted by the central location and easy parking.
The store's license is held by 52-year-old Sholpan Belbayeva of Woodinville, who bid $161,000 and won exclusive rights to apply for the license. She lives in Woodinville with her husband, Baurzhan Belbayev. Their company, Otan Investments, was formerly involved in importing timber from Siberia.
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