- Amazon is trying to open a liquor store in San Francisco selling beer, wine, and spirits.
- The company has applied for a liquor license and approval from the city to open a storefront at its warehouse in San Francisco.
- The brick-and-mortar store, reportedly 200 square feet in size, would operate as a liquor store and a location from which Amazon can operate an alcohol-delivery service.
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Amazon has applied for a license to open a liquor store in San Francisco selling beer, wine, and spirits.
The storefront would allow consumers to buy alcohol directly from the business, and also give the company a location from which they could deliver alcohol to Prime Now customers in San Francisco. Applications for the liquor license and for approval to open a brick-and-mortar business are still pending with the city and the state of California.
Amazon plans to open a 200-square-foot storefront at the site of its current warehouse in San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood, according to filings to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors obtained by The Mercury News. The storefront would only be operational from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily, but alcohol deliveries from the store would be made after-hours, from 8 a.m. to midnight.
However, Amazon’s liquor license application shows that the primary reason for opening a storefront in San Francisco would be so the company could add wine and alcohol to the long list of items available for delivery through Prime Now, Amazon’s two-hour delivery service for everything from groceries to electronics.
Through Prime Now, Amazon already offers alcohol for delivery in cities including Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York (only in Manhattan and Brooklyn), St. Louis, and Washington, D.C.
Strike & Techel, the company that filed the license for the liquor storefront, did not respond to Business Insider's request for comment. Amazon responded only to say that the storefront will be used for Amazon Prime Now deliveries of alcohol.
More recently, Amazon filed an additional application this week for a state-issued liquor license allowing it to deliver wine in San Francisco purchased online.
