Takoma Park seemed to be the perfect location for the specialty beer and wine store that Silver Spring couple Kathy and Suman Shrestha wanted to open.

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The Shresthas sell organic beers and brews from countries like Belgium and Germany, and Takoma Park, with its penchant for all things organic and international, had open commercial space in a historic district largely populated by small businesses.

"It was really a feeling. It wasn’t anything scientific. We had a good feeling about Takoma Park," she says. "We always liked that town, and we thought it would be a great place."

The only problem? Beer and wine stores aren’t permitted in Takoma Park, thanks to a century-old restriction dating back to the city’s dry beginnings. But now the city is mulling, albeit ever so cautiously, lifting the ban and opening the door to off-site alcohol sales.

The debate over the ban has largely been centered around fears of providing fertile ground for public drunkenness, loitering, and crime. The Shresthas faced those fears elsewhere, too, after they had given up on Takoma Park. They ended up opening Fenwick Beer and Wine in Silver Spring.

When the couple first went before the board of liquor license commissioners for the Silver Spring store, commercial property owners protested and about 100 residents from Elizabeth House, a nearby low-income senior housing complex, signed a petition against them getting a license.

The Shresthas insisted their store would be different, that they would sell only high-end and specialty spirits, and that they would be good neighbors. They were then granted a second hearing on the issue, and those who initially opposed the license withdrew their opposition.

Fenwick Beer and Wine opened in December 2009, and since then, no complaints about the store have been lodged with the county’s department of liquor control.

Paula Phillips is the resident counselor at Elizabeth House. She says if the seniors had a problem with the store, she would have heard about it, and she hasn’t heard a peep about it since Fenwick opened.

"They were just kind of concerned that there would be beer bottles all over the place, and people would be falling down drunk and coming at all hours," Phillips says. "None of that has materialized… It’s about the same."

The small store at 1327 Fenwick Lane has a couple of rooms housing microbrews, Belgian beers, and locally bottled wines. New Age music softly plays in the background and wine tastings are regular affairs. Drunks loitering in the parking lot with bottles of organic wine in hand are not common complaints made by neighbors.

But an organic beer and wine store isn’t precisely what residents fear will come to Takoma Park. If the ban is lifted, the county, not the city, decides who gets a license to sell beer and wine there.