After 29 years running their downtown bottle shop together, Oke and Robert Rodman have decided to stop and smell the roses.<\/p>\n
Percy\u2019s Liquor, a stalwart of Juneau\u2019s everchanging downtown business scene, will sell its last imported cigars and craft beer on Black Friday. The Rodmans have sold their liquor license to Thibodeau\u2019s Liquor and will retire. The shop may reopen after the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board transfers license ownership.<\/p>\n
With Oke and Robert goes one of downtown Juneau\u2019s last mom and pops. In a Friday interview with the Empire, the couple said they\u2019ll miss greeting regulars, making small talk with business owners and the bike rides from their Douglas Island home.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve seen a lot of people through the years, just have them come in. Things move on, you know,\u201d Robert said, at a loss for words. He reached into a cabinet to share a picture of some old friends on his softball team. He rediscovered it going through old boxes at the store.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re gonna do some traveling,\u201d he added. \u201cHang out, watch the kids grow.\u201d<\/p>\n
The couple has worked seven days a week at the business. Oke said it\u2019s taking a toll on their bodies, and she\u2019s looking forward to having more time for family and other things. But there\u2019s a sense of community on the block she\u2019ll miss.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wish we can continue more, but we can feel the body changing and we don\u2019t have enough energy,\u201d Oke said. \u201cSmall town feel, that\u2019s what I\u2019ll miss the most. I\u2019ll miss a lot of people, relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n
The closing is a bittersweet moment for them both: they\u2019re saying goodbye to a business that\u2019s been a touchstone in their lives since the late \u201880s. The Rodmans have seen their regulars grow up and have kids.<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess it starts with Trappers Tobacco,\u201d Robert explained, referencing a short-lived tobacco shop that went out of business in the \u201880s. With the remains of Trappers\u2019 inventory, Oke started Great Northern Tobacco.<\/p>\n
When a liquor license came up for sale, the couple started selling liquor, beer and wine. Percy\u2019s Liquor was a hub back then: Oke and Robert sold newspapers and tobacco to local business owners. Their shop was a pit stop for many downtown denizens.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was kind of an interesting hub of old-style Juneau, people would come to the liquor store and get newspapers. It was kind of unusual. We\u2019d get all the local business owners that worked and lived downtown,\u201d Robert said.<\/p>\n
More people lived downtown then and didn\u2019t leave after the cruise ship season ended, Robert said. The cold storage was still open. The Gastineau Apartments wasn\u2019t yet condemned. Alaskan Brewing Company owners Geoff and Marcy Larson delivered beer to the shop in person.<\/p>\n
The first couple of decades of ownership, the Rodmans would keep the store open until bar close. A line would form out the door near closing time. They had to employ a bouncer, letting only 10 people in at a time. \u201cPeople drank differently in the old days,\u201d Robert said.<\/p>\n
But things changed. They\u2019ve noticed more homelessness, more violence and more drugs downtown in the last few years. Their daughter\u2019s car was rifled through last week across the street from the store. They no longer feel safe enough to stay open late.<\/p>\n
The clientele has changed over the years, too: more chronic inebriates, fewer businessmen and bar hoppers. \u201cWe started opening later and closing earlier,\u201d Robert said, to avoid what they say was an increasingly dangerous drinking environment. It wasn\u2019t good for business, but because they ran the store themselves, they could afford it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a pretty dramatic change,\u201d through the years, Robert said. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t want my daughter walking downtown alone.\u201d An ambulance pulled up outside Percy\u2019s Liquor during the interview. Robert says he sees a similar scene every day in the winter and \u201cthree, four, five\u201d times a day in the summer.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s distressing and we try not to add to that,\u201d Robert said. \u201cWe\u2019ll miss the people, but we won\u2019t miss that end of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
It hasn\u2019t been all bad changes over the years. Percy\u2019s Liquor has gone through two craft beer booms, Robert said, one in the late \u201880s and one more recently. In the last few years, Percy\u2019s Liquor has become the go-to shop for Juneau\u2019s craft beer heads. Robert said he depends on his daughter and son-in-law, a homebrewer who worked for him for several years, to help pick out the beers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe market changed pretty dramatically in that younger people were into the craft beer scene. Especially this last go around, they were the early adopters of getting something unusual,\u201d Robert said. \u201cWho would think that a 750-milliliter beer would go for $20 or $30?\u201d<\/p>\n
A recent health scare told the couple it was time to close for good. An avid biker, Robert was cycling in Palm Springs, California three weeks ago when he suffered a heart attack. When he got out of the hospital, the couple visited a rose garden.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a city park, a really beautiful park. There\u2019s a rose garden, thousands of roses, beautiful. He tried to smell every one of them,\u201d Oke said admiringly. \u201cThat\u2019s what he does every day, every morning.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to do it,\u201d Robert said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u2022 Contact reporter Kevin Gullufsen at 523-2228 or kevin.gullufsen@juneauempire.com.<\/b><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After 29 years running their downtown bottle shop<\/a> together, Oke and Robert Rodman have decided to stop and smell the roses. Percy\u2019s Liquor, a stalwart of Juneau\u2019s everchanging downtown business<\/a> scene, will sell its last imported cigars and craft beer on Black Friday. The Rodmans have sold their liquor license to Thibodeau\u2019s Liquor and will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":19636,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-19635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19635"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=19635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}