PRINCETON -- The owners of Princeton Wine and Liquor say they are being forced out of business after 16 years because their landlord, a local church, does not want a liquor business in its building, and there is literally no place for them to go.

Rose Marie Belmont and her son Bob Belmont said the First Church of Christ, Scientist, bought the Nassau Street building in 2009 and told them a year-and-half ago that their lease would not be renewed. They must vacate the building by June 30.

“When we pressed for an answer as to why, their reply was — and I quote — ‘We felt that it is not in our best interest having a liquor store as a tenant since we are a church,’” Rose Marie Belmont said in an e-mail. “Their best interest? What about me and my family’s best interest?”

“I think it’s discriminating against the product that I sell,” a tearful Belmont said at the store yesterday. “They own the building and they can do what they want.”

“I shed a lot of tears over this,” she said.

Messages left with the church on Bayard Lane were not returned, and the Christian Science reading room it operates next to the liquor store was closed yesterday. Belmont said she has dealt with a number of different representatives of the church over the past four years.

A spokesman for the national church in Boston said local churches operate independently and declined further comment.

Christian Science, which was founded by Mary Baker Eddy in the late 19th century, is best known for a doctrine that attributes illness to mistaken beliefs and urges avoidance of medical treatment in favor of prayer. Members generally do not drink or smoke, according to the national church’s website.

A few customers were in the liquor store yesterday afternoon, drawn by a white banner flapping in the storefront window that read “Store Closing — Everything Must Go.” Everything in the store is discounted, Belmont said.

Customer Daniel Witkowski noticed the discount when Belmont rang him up for two pint bottles of Becks, and they started talking about the store’s imminent closure.

“That’s sort of sad,” Witkowski said. “I don’t know the ins and outs of it, but if its a lease problem, that’s really sad. I know licenses can be hard to come by.”

In fact, Belmont said, liquor licenses are hard to sell as well. She has listed her retail liquor license for about $575,000, but finding a buyer has been next to impossible because of strict restrictions on where a liquor store may be located, she said. The restrictions also have meant Princeton Wine and Liquor is unlikely to be able to relocate.

Bob Belmont said a retail liquor store cannot be sited within 250 feet of a school, church or another business with a liquor license. He said he has looked up and down Nassau and Witherspoon Streets but found one of those three kinds of facilities at every turn.

“There’s just nothing available on the main drag,” he said.

The Belmonts also must figure out how to sell or dispose of their remaining stock — hundreds of bottles of wines, top-shelf scotches and whiskeys, and countless six packs of beer — by June 30. Until the doors close, all alcohol is 20 percent off, and Rose Marie Belmont said she does not know yet what will happen to unsold remainders.

“I’m just banking on selling everything,” she said.

Belmont said the store was profitable and would have continued to be a success. The phrasing on the banner outside was carefully crafted, she said. There is a reason it does not say “Going out of business.”

“I don’t want people to think that I’ve failed,” Belmont said. “We’ve not failed. We’re being forced to go.”

Contact Jon Offredo at joffredo@njtimes.com or (609) 989-5680.

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