Help Save Acadian Farms & Brewery
Acadian Farms & Brewery in the Oregon/Washington gorge town of Carson, Washington is at risk of being shut down by the local city council and is calling their fans to arms. Next Wednesday an open to the public meeting will be held at the Farm/Brewery and owners are asking for their fans to show support, lets hope they turn out in droves to support this new fan favorite brewery under fire be neighbors and council members because of their nano residential status.
The controversy began on May 10th during a Mother's Day event held at Acadian Farms. The event featured live but acoustic bluegrass music and a food truck. Owners admit because of a great turnout the traffic and parking was a little crazy. But instead of a one time issue that might be resolved they were served with official complaints filed by a couple of their neighbors with the county in regards to the volume of the music and the parking/traffic. While Acadian Farms owners acknowledge if they were to do the event over again they would arrange a different setup and perhaps a shuttle service the formal complaints have put the brewery on the radar of all sorts of county agencies investigating everything from their zoning as a High Density Residential to "Health, Environmental, Engineering, Building, Planning- all of the them. We are called weekly with something new- either a new compliant from our cranky neighbors or some ordinance that no one ever uses or knows about, but is somehow applicable in our situation" said co-owner Nicole Benton.
Nicole says the situation has become so dire that "We were actually issued a Cease & Desist in early June, but thankfully we have a great community who stormed the Skamania County Board of Commissioners meeting on June 10th and theyended up rescinding it rather quickly. They gave us 60 days to come into "compliance" with county regulations regarding traffic, noise, and many other numerous (ridiculous) actions." And according to Nicole they have been working with every county department all summer to become compliant. . "But" she says, "for whatever reason, our county feels the need to have a third party come in to make the final decision regarding the verbiage in the clause I stated above about causing no more traffic or noise than our neighbors. So next Wednesday, September 3rd, a Hearing Examiner will be coming in from Clark County to hear the Planning Department's presentation and they are petitioning her to make an amendment to it."
Both Nicole Benton and her husband will be sworn in and questioned from the Hearing Examiner with a chance for the both detractors and proponents to have their say. If you support Acadian Farms & Brewery this is your chance to stand up and make sure they are not shut down.
The post Help Save Acadian Farms & Brewery appeared first on New School Beer.