Royston Council unanimously approves beer and wine license for new Destiny Food Mart owner

Royston City Council unanimously approved a retail package beer and wine license for Shoukat Hajiyani at Royston Destiny Food Mart, LLC, at 415 Hartwell St., according to minutes from the council’s Sept. 9, 2025 meeting. Councilman McCollum made the motion, Councilman Pressley seconded it, and the measure passed 6-0. The action addressed a license request tied to a change of ownership at a store that was already licensed.

The decision settles the city’s consideration of whether the business’s beer-and-wine package license would be approved in connection with the ownership change. For customers and the new owner, the practical stakes are whether the store at that Hartwell Street address has the city-approved retail package beer and wine license described in the council action. The vote was a narrow business-license decision, not a broader proposal concerning the street, transportation, construction, or other municipal infrastructure.

The matter first appeared in the city’s agenda materials as an item for consideration, with the agenda explaining that the request resulted from a change of ownership at an existing licensed store. An agenda listing alone did not determine the request’s outcome. The subsequent meeting minutes show the council taking the affirmative action: McCollum moved to approve the license, Pressley seconded, and all six voting council members supported the motion. That sequence turns the ownership-related request from a pending agenda item into a documented council approval.

Hajiyani and Royston Destiny Food Mart, LLC were the applicants named in the license item, and the stated basis for their request was the store’s ownership change. McCollum and Pressley publicly took the procedural roles recorded in the minutes by making and seconding the approval motion. The remaining council support is reflected in the 6-0 vote. The minutes do not record debate, conditions attached to the license, public comments, or an opposing position, so the record establishes unanimous council approval but not the reasoning of individual voters or the views of nearby residents and customers.

The approval itself is completed: the Sept. 9 minutes confirm the council vote on the retail package beer and wine license. The earlier agenda item was a proposal for council consideration, while the minutes are the record of action. What remains unestablished is implementation after the vote. The city materials cited here do not say when the ownership transfer took effect, whether the license was subsequently issued or activated administratively, whether its terms were amended, or whether the business’s operations, costs, sales, or customer access changed as a result.

The next public development would be a later city record showing how the approved license was carried out or whether it was amended, replaced, or reconsidered. Until then, the central unresolved questions are administrative rather than electoral: what implementation followed the vote, whether any accounts or property records were affected by the ownership change, and whether the city imposed later requirements or recorded measurable results. No future hearing, implementation date, payment, or additional council action is identified in the documents summarized here.