"My initial gut reaction was 'oh no, we don't need this kind of thing in the neighbourhood'," he said.
"I think it is a completely inappropriate place to put a liquor store so I am fully against it.
"It is just another thing to add more trouble in the neighbourhood, attracting the wrong kind of people here.
"Tempting people to buy liquor and just hang around there. It is a place where we live with our small kids ... "
In addition to speaking to the media, Mr Lomberg said he had signed the petition and was hoping to write a letter in opposition to it as well.
"I am not sure what else we can do," he said.
However, Paramjit Singh who made the application for the store, said he only wanted to beautify the area.
He said he owned the building and he wanted to make some money off the shop as it had been sitting empty for a while, and he believed with a business there the area would be safer.
"Plus we could give jobs to the people," he said.
"I try and do my best because I need something, too, because I pay everything. I am paying my loan. I am paying rates to the council and the shops are empty."
He said in applying for a licence he had thought about the schools and the churches in the area.
That was why the shop would close during the hours students arrived and left school, and on Sundays.
"We respect the schoolkids, we respect the church and we respect all the people."
In regards to alcohol health-related issues, Hawke's Bay is doing worse than the national average in hazardous drinking.
Last year Health Inequity in Hawke's Bay looked at health inequalities that were avoidable or preventable.
The report showed one in every four Hawke's Bay adults was a "hazardous drinker"; nearly twice the national average.
According to the Hawke's Bay District Health Board (DHB), police and health get to comment on all liquor-licensing applications.
"But this is the first time the DHB has been involved under the new amenity and good order provisions of the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act 2012," said Rachel Eyre, a DHB public-health specialist.
"The district health board has decided to be more proactively involved because of the new (2012) Act which allows the community to have more say.
"A number of people from the community and come to the DHB and expressed their concern at a new bottle store opening."
Hastings Mayor Lawrence Yule said while the application still had to make its way through the district licensing committee, he had seen already a lot of concern in the community.
He said the town had enough outlets and did not need more bottle stores in communities. It was a decision that the applicant would have to convince the liquor licensing panel of.
"My general perception, and it is not on this store specifically, but it is really about local community stores, is I think we have actually got plenty of outlets and we don't need any more," he said.
"But when you get out into specific little suburbs like Raureka, which has had its challenges in the past and the community are trying to do something about that, I just don't think it necessarily helpful to put alcohol right in the middle of that community when it is not actually that far to the nearest outlet anyway."
