Lane Cellars owners proposing new shop in former S.M. Abikhair building in Albury

Business partners Campbell Hedley and David Cumming opened Lane Cellars at Orange in late 2018 and propose to open in the S.M. Abikhair shop in Olive Street.

The first step to opening has commenced with notification of the owner's intentions in the shopfront and, if required, a community impact statement will be submitted to Liquor & Gaming NSW.

A liquor licence to sell wine and craft beers, ciders and spirits is also required before opening the doors.

Mr Hedley said after the business performed strongly during COVID they turned their attention to finding another store location.

"We kept landing back on Albury for a couple of reasons, the population, the growth of the city and also the wine regions are important, Rutherglen, King Valley, Beechworth," he said.

"We think we can do a similar thing down there.

"We looked at every vacant commercial premises that was the right size and we just kept coming back to that space.

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"It's the right size and just has fantastic aesthetic appeal and history to it.

"We've got a pretty clear ethos for the shop and that is we support local wineries first and foremost.

"With the beers we are 100 per cent independent and if a craft beer gets bought by the big guys we take them out of the fridge."

Proposed trading hours are 10am to 7pm Monday to Sunday with wine and liquor tasting and education events also planned.

When the Abikhair shop closed in the mid-1990s, Albury Council purchased the merchandise and stock and later formed part of an exhibition.

"In recent years there has been an increasing demand by the public for quality craft, artisan and boutique liquires," the notification states.

"There is presently no such facility in Albury."

Mr Hedley is part-owner of a racehorse named Swagger, which is ironically trained by Albury's Mitch Beer.

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