Tanetta Graham, my vote is yes with proviso.
Ryan McAdams, my vote is yes with proviso.
Iowen, my vote is yes with proviso.
Thank you.
We're going to take a five-minute break, maybe six minutes.
you look like you're rich when people came
Number four, MI 2025, 004-398-10012, Santa Meyer Lane, Isaac Slepner is the attorney.
Thank you.
good afternoon chair and members of the board good afternoon counsel um you've already been
sworn earlier today uh just for the record could you state your name yes my name is isaac i-s-a-a-c
last name slepner s sam l larry e elvis p peter n norman e elvis r robert s-l-e-p-n-e-r
Counsel, could you identify your client, the relationship to this property?
Yes, my client is Mariam Star LLC, which is the owner of 10-0-1-2 Sandmeyer Lane.
And with me is Zakeed Rasool, who is a principal of that LLC.
And I would say that there's a letter of unanimous support from the Somerton Civic Association with 37 positive votes.
Our vice chair has a few questions for you.
Sure. Good afternoon. Have you submitted your documents and exhibits five days in advance of this hearing?
Yes, we have. And do you waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Yes, we do. OK, thank you. You can share your screen and proceed.
All right. Here we go. All right. Can everybody see everything there?
it's coming up right now sir yep we said okay great so this is a copy of the
notice of refusal that we just stipulated to and had read so I won't
belabor that this is a copy of the deed to the property in favor of my client
Mariam star LLC purchased deed was executed on 4 17 25 recorded on 4 21 20
The property is a commercial condominium, so my client owns it, and he intends to open a food market and bakery, and we'll get to his plans for it in a moment.
This is our initial application for appeal from the Notice of Refusal that we applied back in June of this year.
Again, we're only seeking variants for use.
This is the project information form that I also filled out and submitted with the application for appeal.
This is a certificate of mailing to quite a number of neighbors.
I want to say about 90 of them, all near neighbors that were identified by the Planning Commission's address list plus the RCOs and Councilman O'Neill's office.
This is a copy of the address list as you can see and this is the actual letter to the neighbors
advising them of the RCO holding the public meeting and just describing the refusal and
describing what variants we were seeking.
variants we were seeking. This is, as Mr. Chairman, you previously mentioned,
This is, as you
the letter of support from Somerton Civic Association dated 11-30-2025,
recapping their vote of 37 in favor and zero opposed to the project.
So now I will get into some photographs and I'll describe to you what we intend to do here.
My client, as I mentioned, owns this unit.
This is a photo of the entire strip center there.
Now, this is zoned I-2, and this has been zoned I-2 for decades because it all used to be part of the old bud plant.
And even when the bud plant was directly behind it, now it's a golf course.
Golf course is still zoned I-2 for what it's worth.
This strip center is also zoned I-2.
The one that currently says healthy habits is ours, 10-0-0-1-2.
and as you can see there is a pizza shop some catering there's a little skin and
body spa here and some other food establishments this is my clients you'll
notice there's already a pizza shop in here and because it is zoned I too this
pizza shop at some point had to go through the same process and procedure
that we're here on today as I mentioned my client intends to convert this space
and this is a photo one of the interior. It used to be kind of a health spa sort
of a establishment and it's been left mostly empty. Here's a second shot of the
interior. Here is a third shot of the interior that's from the back of the
place looking forward. This is a certificate of tax clearance that was
issued on 11-21, so it's still valid for today. This is, I'm going to show you four
photos of the orange poster having been hung on 11-19. Here's a close-up being
hung inside the glass front door. Here's a very close close-up. Here's a mid-range
shot showing the entire frontage of the property within the strip center. And
and this last one is sort of a mid-range shot.
So as I said, my client intends to open a market, a takeout food market and bakery,
no dine-in, no tobacco license sought, no liquor license sought. It would be just very simple
dishes from his homeland of Uzbekistan I believe I don't want to misquote myself
on that so I have my client testify but in any event it will be a deli market
and bakery with that I would like to have my client adopt the testimony and I
I call my client, Zakeed Razul, who should be on this call.
Zakeed, you're out there?
Mr. Razul is coming back in as a panelist now.
Oh, thank you.
Isaac, these places have basements too?
That's a great question.
Didn't I see a picture of stairs going up, so it had to be the basement, right?
Well, you know, that's actually a good question.
You would think.
You showed him where there was stairs going up.
Well, I think there is a basement, and I think that he intends for the basement just to be storage,
because I don't believe there's going to be a kitchen or anything down there.
Is he going to bait there?
There's a key.
Hello?
If we can swear him in, I'll have him adopt my testimonial license.
Could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
My name is Zohid.
Last name, Rasul.
Z-O-H-I-D.
R-A-S-U-L.
Do you swear or affirm that tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Proceed, counsel.
So, Zohid, you're a member of Mariam Star LLC, correct?
And Mariam Star LLC is the owner of 1001-2 Sandmeyer?
Yes, sir.
And did you hear all the testimony and see all the exhibits that I offered to the board today?
Yes, sir.
And was all of that testimony and all of those exhibits true and correct to the best of your knowledge?
Yes, sir.
And would you adopt all of that testimony as though you had given it yourself?
Yes, sir.
So I just wanted to ask you a couple other questions.
I know the chairman had asked about a basement.
Is there a basement in this place?
And do you intend to cook, or is it just sales of prepared foods and bakery?
And do you intend to cook or is it just sales of prepared foods and bakery?
No, just preparing.
So is there intended to be a full kitchen?
No, basement, just preparing zone.
Where would the baking be taking place?
Upstairs.
And I'm sorry, you've got to correct me if I'm wrong.
You are from Uzbekistan, right?
Yes, I am.
I just didn't want to mischaracterize you because I know that the Uzbek food is delicious.
I've been to some other Uzbek spots in the Northeast, and I just didn't want to mischaracterize.
So thank you for clearing that up.
I don't have anything further for my client.
Questions from the board.
Did I hear correctly?
Is there going to be baking, not going to be baking?
How is this going to work?
So, Zeyd, do you intend to put in a full bakery oven in there, or how do you intend to go about this?
Yes, it's going to be upstairs.
We are trying to make a setup of a hood and a preparing zone upstairs.
Basement doesn't allow to, you know, set up kitchen.
Just preparing zone of a basement.
so the basement would be limited to storage and prep that's correct okay and you're not
i'm sorry go ahead go ahead oh i was going to ask you're not going to have um tables no dine-in
correct no just take out okay so what kind of menu are we talking about sandwiches uh sandwiches
Is there a layout plan for the retail space that shows the kitchen versus the rest of the space use?
I don't believe we had submitted that. I'm not quite sure that I have one.
And if that's something that the board would ultimately want to see before issuing a decision, I completely understand.
But let me look in my files.
If I had one and didn't send it, then that was an oversight by me.
But I don't actually see one in my materials.
Yeah, I think I'm just trying to understand.
You've all been talking about it.
It sounds characterized more as a bakery and takeout restaurant, and the request is for sales of food, beverages, and groceries, which usually I think of more convenience.
So I was just trying to understand the layout of the space.
Understood.
Like putting in an order.
yeah and i just i just want to note that sometimes these these uh like a bakery will
get characterized by lni as retail sales of food beverages and groceries or could be a prepared
food shop could be takeout restaurant so it does vary a little bit how it gets characterized by
lni and i know he said he wants to add a hood so i've i'm really interested in like the layout
of the kitchen and the right i'm assuming the vent is everything's going to be vented through
the roof that would uh that would seem to be the case yeah or out the back and then that the
basement is only dry dry goods yeah dry and storage okay and did i hear something about
prep prep some sort yeah in the basement um that yeah you know that seems to be the intent right
now but that can always you know the layout can always change of that if if need be
i really i really think flexible yeah so we we really need to see something because you know
you need to have um uh yeah you need to have commercial equipment you need to show you know
what you're going to do about whatever this baking is if there's going to be an oven what
vending is going to be and if you're talking about food prep you need to you know show us
where you're gonna where you're gonna do that yeah understood i think my last question is really
around trash it does look like there's a drive aisle right behind the building that surfaces
all of those the storefronts and i can't really tell from aerial views where the other food
businesses in the strip mall are storing their trash yeah and it's like another road parking
at the rear there's parking at the front and see you're there fairly frequently
you could probably speak more to this there's parking at the front I would
have to imagine there's a commercial hauler that all the all the units at
Imagine there's a commercial hauler that all the all the units at the strip use or the association hires.
the strip
Is that correct, Z? Yes. OK, so there's commercial hauling and all the trash is what dumpsters at the rear.
That's correct. OK. And as for the as for the parking, it's you know, it's already a strip center.
So they've got a parking lot at the front. Yeah, it just looks like the neighboring property,
which appears to be the what the collision center has a role of parking that's next to this drive
aisle at the rear which is why i was sort of asking about their venting i see yeah yeah zeed
have you begun yeah the pizza shop would be vented through the roof i would zeed would you be venting
through the roof or out the back uh it's a roof because uh pizza shop and uh you know indian
catering also they did uh on the roof okay so you so there's a precedent there for for there
having been um venting out the roof yes two business uh doing it on the roof okay
already do we want to make this a uh resumptive i mean if the board would like to see i mean i
think we have to see something okay yes we can we can do a resumption that's fine we can use the
date there yeah um why don't we see uh why don't we go through the you know door see if there's
anybody is there anybody in the virtual audience with comments about this i see no hands here
planning
good evening chair michael gall with the philadelphia city planning commission
m-i-c-h-a-e-l-g-a-l-l do you swear or affirm to tell the truth told truth nothing but the truth
i so affirm please proceed sir the comprehensive plan recommends a change in the zoning for this
location from i2 medium industrial to cmx2 commercial mixed use the proposed use would
be allowed by right under the proposed zoning and is consistent with the configuration of the
current structure planning commission therefore recommends the board grant the requested variance
for retail sales of food and beverage so hillary will have to go with the february date all right
so we're going to have a resumptive hearing for this isaac understood february 3rd
I'm guessing that's a Wednesday
but I'll look at my calendar
so just to be
just to be clear it sounds
to me that the board would like to
see some sort of an interior
floor plan and site plan
of a particular place
and answer the questions
where is he going to vent and things of that nature