[Music] calling that meeting back to order continuation of the November 5th public
hearing meeting. Um, Mr. Thank you. [Music] This is complet. If you don't mind, I'm going to allow the board a few moments to uh read the correspondence before we begin.
[Music] Does the board have enough time to review? >> Yes. >> All right. I just must congratulate both attorneys. You sufficiently killed enough sh.
The chair recommendes attorney Journal. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to come back. I realize that this is the second night of hearing and uh as you just mentioned, there's been a lot of paper in this matter. I do think
that um just a few things that I'd like to walk through to potentially help orient the board to this matter. I think one of the things that I sensed coming out of the last
meeting that um there wasn't a lot of hygiene and how we talked about the various parts of this property and the activities on the property. So, in my October 28th letter
that I sent after the last meeting on page two, I included a a photograph of the entire uh 16 East Street property. And in that, I I emphasized that over or
approximately 11 acres of the property is engaged in haying activity. And in my letter, I noted the town of East versus Clancy decision in which um one of the tenants of that case, one of the
holdings of that case is that um the Dover amendment can apply to parcels greater than 5 acres in size where the primary purpose of the land is agricultural. Um and so these visualizations of the property and the extensive amount of the
property that is uh engaged in the hanging activity certainly supports that the primary use of this property is agricultural. Now I note um in our letter letters that
uh Winehouse does not sell the hay commercially. they allow uh Barstow's Long View Farm to come in and uh cut the hay and bring it back to their property for uh promotion of their
livestock. Um and so it is from my perspective um unquestionable that that land is being used at in agricultural in agriculture, excuse me, even though there's not a dollar value or a monetary
transaction for the ability to take that hay. As I mentioned in one of our letters, it's a really a good neighbor thing to do. It is also beneficial for both sides. At at one of Barstow's uh
farm stands, they feature wine house uh wine products there. So there is, you know, some cooperation on both sides, but it's not strictly economical. The other thing that I wanted to orient the the board to on page three, I think is the better image is just the layout
of the operation for Winehouse. and that is we've had a lot of discussion about you know the 2010 special permit what it applies to and what can be permitted and what I think is important to focus the
board's attention on is that from that image on page three this special permit from 2010 which is expressly referenced in the building commissioners May 31 2025 letter is a concern about and and
that special permit pertained to the accessory building that was a garage um that is now the tasting room. And we've had discussions about the language in that 2010 special permit that had a prohibition on business service in
industry. And there were many comments in opposition to our stance that the wine house operation is engaged in manufacturing. uh that the production of wines is manufacturing and that is barred by the
2010 special permit. But I call your attention to the layout of the property on page three because as you can see the production room the facilities where to the extent that activity could be described as manufacturing and through
that be described as industry that is taking place in a different portion of the property that's taking place in the production room. Um that being said, I think that it is important to note that
yes, agricultural products, raw agricultural products can be made into more finished products. And perhaps we could describe that as manufacturing, but it doesn't change the the nature of
those products as agricultural products. And I think the the cases that we cited um support that considerably. In addition, I I I know that u Mr. Attorney Mclofflin has referenced the Harvard Brewing case a number of times.
We tried to draw the distinction with it in our papers. But I think what one way that I would go further is observing that the wine house operation does have a farm winery license which is going to
make it different and distinct from the commercial brewing operation noted in the Harvard brewing case. And I believe that our October 7th letter as exhibit 7 is a copy of that farmer winery license.
And that former winery license is issued pursuant to a statute Mass General Laws chapter 138 section 19b. And that statute is very direct that the purpose of the state acknowledging that there is
such something as a farmer winery license is noting um the statute says directly that it is granting or creating this for the purpose of encouraging the development of domestic vineyards.
Furthermore, in subsection F of the statute, it notes that a wine grower may import the unfermented juice of fruits as part of its wine- making operation. And as we um asserted in our
communications, that is part of what Wine House does. It is cultivating grapes on the property and it is also receiving unfermented. is receiving grapes and turning that into wine, which is recognized under general laws chapter
138 section 19b as part of what a farmer winery can do under its farmer winery license. Um and and lastly, I think just in terms of the the hygiene and how we
discuss this property. Um, and you know, I I've drawn comments that, you know, assertions of it being referred to as a as a nightclub are just going too far. um in terms of what the
the board has in terms of a concept of what is taking place here and I'll turn to the gross annual sales on page nine of our October 28th letter and that is to the extent there's any
concern or feeling among the members about you know what is going on here is it a bar is it a nightclub are they you know selling um table service of specialty bottles of exotic liquor or the like. What is being
sold there is wine. Overwhelmingly it is wine. 8 roughly 85% slightly 84 2024 uh slightly I think 86% in 2024 84 and change percent in 2025. It is the sale
of wine and it it is not just an open service bar with lots of other uh liquor being offered. We break out the sale of beer either beer brewed by wine house
itself or beer brewed by drunken rabbit and we provide the the other revenue figures uh poultry under 5% of all other things. 85% of all the economic activity here is from the wine produced and/or
produced and grown at the facility pursuant to that farm winery license. And so yes, there are promotions, there are innovative things that the wine house
staff comes up with to draw folks to the venue. But the commercial activity, the revenue generating activity is the sale of wine at the tasting room. Uh there are not uh tickets or admissions sold
for the music concerts and the like. The economic activity that Wine House is engaged in is in the sale of the wine that it produces. And and with that, I think it's very strong for the board to
be able to find that this is uh predominantly an agricultural use. The primary use of the property is agriculture. That the tasting room is effectively the farm stand uh for that business. I I know just as I sat down,
attorney Mlofflin provided me some documentation showing tax records describing this this venue as a restaurant. I don't think that's of any moment. In the modern continental case that we cited to you, that farm stand operation also had a um food sales
restaurant component. I don't think that that is incompatible with the notion of the tasting room being the farm stand for this agricultural activity and the point of sale for those products. I think it's very much in keeping with the
cases that we cited to you where do amendment protections has been found repeatedly for this type of commercial activity. By statute and by case law, the Commonwealth has frequently and regularly found that agricultural
activity is commercial activity. folks labor, making wine, growing grapes, that end product is going to get sold. This tasting room is just in that chain providing an opportunity for the the
fruits of that labor and the fruits of the land to be sold. And I think the ZBA can be uh very comfortable in finding that this activity is protected by Dover um and and therefore can proceed and
doesn't require other zoning relief. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> For some clarification, yes, if you mind, >> are you uh can you tell me if there's any production of wine or other products in the tasting at all? >> No, I don't. No, not to my knowledge. I don't believe so.
>> And when you have these um these events at the tasting room, is it often just confined to inside the building or is it outside the building as well? >> No, it is not. In nicer weather, it can be outside the building. That image on page three of our October 28th letter
shows a patio space outside of uh between the tasting room and the production areas. And outlined in green um is what is designated as a serving area and that pursuant to its licenses is
where wine house um can have customers enjoying their wine products. So that the serving area is larger than the tasting room itself. And uh Mr. Chair, thank you. Your question has uh reminded me the primary reason for today's letter
was a vehicle for um getting before the board the entertainment and um common victuals licenses that were granted to uh Graanby. I apologize I didn't have those in hand at the when I made my last
submission. But one of the reasons why I think those are important to share with all of you is a discussion that we had before in that the the in large measure the entertainment activity is governed
by the entertainment license issued by the select board. um and that the to give this board comfort in knowing that yes there is a regulatory regime whereby Wine House gets permission from
the town to conduct um such activities. I don't know if that's more than you needed Mr. Chair but serving is not restricted to the tasting room. There are some outside spaces that are involved. >> Thank you for that clarification. Uh, another question I had is other than
the hay and thank you for clarifying that there's no re revenue generated by the hay. Are there are there revenues generated from the produce grown or uh produced on the property? >> Yes. In so far as uh in the in the
percentage of gross annual sales, some of the agricultural products go into the beer that is sold um to to and some of the other elements may be used in the creation of the products.
But I and if so, they're captured in that last um well the last category is other nonproducts, non-farm products. I don't know that those other um [Music] that the other agricultural products
have advanced so much to be uh revenue generating but not not in any material way. >> Thank you. So, let me um let me first state that there's been a lot of idioms and proverbs mentioned in last meeting
and I'm going to probably use them through myself this evening. I would like to come to the elephant in the room. That's idiom number one. Um the the question I have is simply this. You are referring to qualification of
protection of the door act. >> Yes. Uh the fundamental question I have is this is that when you were issued the cease and desist order back in 2024 um why didn't the applicant uh appeal that decision to settle that question uh
at that point to the best of my knowledge and awareness you know I think you can read that letter and the letter says in in addition to stating that there's a cease and desist it also says why did you come talk to me. I think in effect at the end
of the letter and my understanding is that there were conversations that were had and there were also um disagreements with respect to the provenence of the building inspector's authority in that
regard in in part because of the protection of do um there were other personal reasons personal health reasons that interfered with the ability to pursue that at the time. Um, beyond
that, I wasn't engaged until November of last year. So, I was not intimately aware with the how the matter proceeded with the issuance of the building commissioner's letter in May of 2024.
>> I'm sure you can appreciate the position that puts the board of of appeals in uh in terms of considering whether or not this is protected under a Well, part of the reason that the matter is framed in this way, I think, is that
the in the in the prior history of this matter, this board did not have an opportunity to assess all this information and get to a determination. And so
we felt that it was important to have the board get that opportunity and to um issue an assessment based on its review of the information to make that determination. >> Thank you.
The other concern I had is you're in your documentation here, you're referring to um the tasting room akin to a farm stand. >> Yes. And I would like you to further explain that because
at first glance and reference to not only the the information regarding the board of assessors u u assessment analysis but also um the building permit application that was subsequently applied for for change
of use. Um the change of use application was for specifically the storage building uh to change it from uh uh use S storage to use A2 which is assembly. Um your farm stand it would seem to me
as a former building official uh that that use group would have been changed to a B. Um so could you kindly uh explain your rationale and reasoning uh why you still maintaining the the likeness to a farm stand rather to a uh
other uses that use group A2 would be. Well, I think that um again in our October 28th letter, in particular the town of Nic versus modern Continental Construction,
there's a very clear sense in that case that the types of activity associated with such a farm stand is protected by Dover. And I see the point of sale in
the tasting room as uh very as as you say very akin to the kind of point of sale you would have buying agricultural products from a farm. Um with respect to how the change of use form
should have uh designated that I I understand your concern. Um I think that given the given the protection that the use in the building should have I think that's the overriding concern. Um if if there if
there is a concern with respect to that use designation um we could return to assess that. But I think that from from my perspective the the overriding importance in terms of the zoning
protection that the use and activity should have as being protected under do is the more overriding concern. >> All right. Thank you. Uh does any member have questions this? >> Um I just want to make note that I guess
that on the the town card here It says notes. says why is charged for the land as a um and then I have a question as to your statement about I know you weren't engaged to the
attorney but we got I read the letter and it was conflicting whether it was like an absolute cease and desist or like hey we got problems here let's talk about it >> but I but I'm not an attorney but from what I understand before you can challenge something at court you have to
go through all of your administrative uh first you know the the I forget the fancy name of it. They have to go through your administrative. So if this goes then that's when you go to court cuz sometimes you go to court first they throw it out and said did you go through
all your uh administrative options? I know that depending on ling you have to do that first. So >> that was precisely my question why I wouldn't run. >> Yeah. So, I just want Well, >> that's I don't know. I believe I'm correct. That's why it probably wouldn't have been a challenge to pork right away
because you have to go through all the administrative stuff. >> But anyway, go ahead. >> You said the patio's licensed under the tasting room for >> Yes. It's part of the area where alcohol can be served. Correct. >> And that's under the tasting room license.
>> Well, it's under wine houses. Yes. because I believe there's a stipulation for the license originally about serving outside. Is that not correct? >> I'm I'm not sure I understand the question. >> You said it was licensed. So, I was questioning the ability to serve alcohol
outside on the patio. >> Pursuant to the pouring licenses that the the facility enjoys, customers can take those beverage. It's more of the concern of where beverages can be consumed. And so the the business has to
designate those areas for the purposes of those licenses. And so that is that is what's designated >> but not outlined in the permit. >> Sorry, say again. >> It's not outlined in the permit. >> In in which permit?
>> Return to the US. >> Oh. Oh. in the in the entertainment uh license. >> Entertainment and the second one >> the common victual owner's license. >> The these were the permits withheld by the selections
stipulations. >> Yes. >> Okay. What were those stipulations? >> Uh for the property to um have a certificate of inspection from the building commissioner. >> Uh I Yes.
And those those were received. Do >> you have a question answer? >> No. Okay. Do you have any questions? >> Yeah. I just uh if I'm hearing everything right, it sounds like basically they were issued a cease and
discuss and just didn't pay any attention to it. And uh that number one is the wrong thing. Number two, it and this is only for my personal why isn't the property in chapter
if it's a if it's a agriculture, which there aren't too many agricultures not in chapter, why is it chapter? I I'm not privy to that particular um reason or circumstance. I I think being in the chapter is a
certainly a strong indicator of the agricultural uh nature of the property, but I don't think it would exclude a finding that the primary purpose. >> Are you considering Jameson Environmental Lighthouse a farm business?
>> I would describe it that way. So farm business is defined in the general bylaws that 50% of which products come from the farm have to be produced on site if you're considering a farm business.
Are you saying that 50% of the re the properties being renovated is being grown on site and used? Well, I'm not I'm not looking at the statute necessarily, but again pursuant >> are the definitions of these mandates.
>> Okay. So again, I think as we've described pursuant to the farmer winery license, it does allow for the um bringing on of agric agricultural products for the
production of the wine and pursuant to 4DA section 3, the language describing the farm activity is that the materials are produced on site and we would maintain very strongly that the wine the
end product um that wine arts is producing from agricultural products is produced on site. >> Just as a clarification on that point, uh section three doesn't refer to 25% of the product being produced has to be grown on the site.
>> It doesn't say grown, it says produced. >> Mr. Chairman question for you. >> The town voted some years ago to be a friendly friendly committee. Has the zoning bylaw has been updated since that to reflect what the vast general law has
to say underneath that section that we accepted. What I'm saying is the zoning law bylaws I I don't attorney, but it's possible the zoning laws could be in conflict and what the town voted for. >> I don't know the answer to that question. I know referring to town did
that. >> It's just I'm just asking. I don't know. I don't know the answer. >> Mr. Chair, I have one more question, please. How many pounds of grapes and how many pounds of hops are generated? >> I don't have the figures in terms of
pounds that are generated. Um, the the the the best measure that I could point you to would be the gross annual sales that we um that we disclosed in our October 28th
letter. And I don't offh hand have necessarily a direct correlation to what that means in terms of pounds or or gallons necessarily cuz there's a chemistry that goes into
doing wine and doing beer that goes to how many pounds of hops are required to make a certain type of beer. >> Certainly. So if that's not present here, you can grow 100 acres of hops and 100 acres of grapes, but unless it's broken down, what is that being used for other than
being used for growing beer? >> But if you don't have the percentages with the weights, that's that's a new point. I'm not I'm not certain that I agree just in so far as the analysis for the zoning discussion that we're
having in terms of whether or not the property qualifies for protection under the do amendment. The the focus is either on the total acreage that is under cultivation or the revenue
generated from those products. I don't recall I'm not familiar with necessarily a threshold weight or gallonage measure that would be required. I think um
in in general I think I agree with you and I and I think your analysis is sound in so far as yes um some measure of hops go into a product. Um, but I think that the cases that we cited, in particular,
Modern Continental, they state that they are less concerned about finding what percentage of an end product contains what percentage of agricultural products that were grown. So, for example, I think they talk about um
fruit pies and and other things that might wind up in the farmstead. So long as some measure of it came from cherries grown on the orchard or for the purposes of beer, some measure of the hops went into the product, they are very comfortable finding those to be
agricultural end products that can be then counted in terms of revenue. So that's the analysis that we've been bringing to it. Is there any questions? Uh just for the um
record here um the definitions under our bylaws define farm business as a business established farm products 50% of which must be raised or produced on the premises or else brand. Okay,
>> we'll come back to that when we appreciate that clarification again. I I although I think that is uh that is an interesting thing to explore. I don't think it is uh would prohibit the board
from finding that the do amendment necessarily applies. Whether or not the business could qualify as a as a farm business under the bylaw, I think it's a question different from whether for zoning purposes if it's entitled to that relief. Uh one last question for
this at this in your original uh letter you mentioned that no excuse me I think it's the second letter that you wrote to the uh board uh that the focus of the uh the tasting room is the focus not the the whole parcel of land uh for
qualifying for the bill amendment. Is that my correct understanding of your your letter? >> Do you recall? >> I don't recall that specifically. I I would say that the that the two are intertwined in so far as the tasting
room is part of the agricultural use of the property. Again, more akin to a farm stand. It's a it's a continuation of the agricultural activity. It's not separate and distinct from the agricultural activity. >> Thanks. >> Um we'd like to have you back I mean
voting later. >> That's fine, Mr. Mclofflin. Thank you, Mr. Chair. >> If if I could try to um Attorney John McGlaughlin representing uh Morsettes,
um if I could try to address a couple of issues. One thing is this talk about uh common victicular licenses and alcohol uh beverage uh licenses as if that somehow deals with the zoning in any way whatsoever. It doesn't. Um, I don't know
if I said this before, I was able to get a liquor license, a golf course liquor license for the very first time for a disc golf course instead of a hit the ball with the stick. And that was one thing we had to deal with. But separate, just because I got that didn't mean I
was okay for zoning. I still had to deal with the special permit which went to appeal to the superior court. They're separate and distinct. Just because you get a common victicular license or just because you get a a winery license or a brewery license doesn't deal with
zoning. Those licenses necessarily infer that you're going to use them in a district where you can use them. It doesn't mean that if you get a brewery license and you put it into a residential home property district that it's fine because you got the liquor license. So that's a red herring. The
fact that he shows I've got this license, I've got this license, I've got this license, has nothing to do with zoning, th those licenses infer that they're going to be used where you can use them. Okay. Um why brother councel
uh is saying that he is can get around that because of the do amendment. Okay. Now, a couple things about the do amendment. Number one, I think everybody's correct. He had a clear, my reading of the 2024 order was quite
clear. It was saying you can't do your restaurant, bar, nightclub, facility in this residential district. And he never appealed that. I understand he didn't have an attorney at that time. That's unfortunate, but he never appealed it.
So you can readily say, "What are we doing here? You you this is still a valid order. It was never appealed and you just can't do anything on the entire property, not just the tasting building. That's over. Um, also, you know, it it
sounds picky, but I pointed out that this particular amendment was too late. He was supposed to within 30 days get something to the town clerk. Instead, he gave it to different boards and not the town clerk. That's fatal, too. I mean it might sound picky and I know your town
clerk was on vacation but you know that was a problem. So why are we here both times say you can't use the taste room you didn't appeal it on time and you can't use that property for this facility. You didn't appeal that on time. That would be a quick and
easy one but we don't have to go that way. But both those things are really really hanging over the head of the board that we shouldn't even be here. He's too late. He's too late. He's too late. Um, getting to the Dover Amendment. Okay, the Dover Amendment before you start
getting into the percentages of what what where did this come from? Where did this grapes come from? Where did this yeast and hops and barley come from? Before you even get to that, the Dover Amendment only applies if the property is primarily commercial agriculture.
Okay? It has to be primarily commercial agriculture before you can even start getting into the numbers and the calculations and the analysis under the do amendment. And here the issue is, is this really a farm that's doing something to help its life
as a farm or is this a big bar facility that happens to be growing some crops that they hay once a year? That's what it is. Um, and the way to do that is you look at the net effect. You can look at a variety of things on that property. I
say um the main thing to look at because I'm a little bit of a capitalist in my mind is you look at the money. You look at the money. It's like what is making the most money? Is it the the bar, brewery, winery, outdoor entertainment? Is that making the most money or is it
the farming? It has to be the farming to come under the protection of the Dover Amendment. the little thing you're doing to help your farm can't be much bigger than the farm. Then it just is backwards. So you can look at a variety of things aside from money. You could look at
uh the number of buildings. When you look at the buildings, it looks like most of the buildings are being used not for pure agricultural enterprise but for this you know entertainment uh alcoholic beverage facility. Uh you can look at the number of employees. He could have
told us oh no almost all my employees are out there in the farm. No, I don't think that's the case. I think almost all of his employees are selling blues, not farming. And the third thing you could look at um is the acreage. And
admittedly, that's the only one. Okay. Uh just the acreage. If it was just the acorage, apparently more acres are being hayed than take up the massive entertainment complex. But I cited to you there's a Richardson case where a farmer was doing earth removal. They do
frequently. They do that. And in this case, the farmer was making much much much more money after earth removal than he was from his farm. He went to the land court. The land court said, "Well, he's using more land uh for the farm than this multi-, you know, 7digit
business earth removal. So, we got to give it to him." The appella court said, "No, that's that's crazy. You you look at the whole thing and you do look at the money and when you look at the money, when you look at the number of employees, when you look at the number of buildings, any way you look at this,
this is an entertainment facility primarily. And one of my clients neighbors has brought a tax record which I just got that show that even your tax assessor is saying that building's a restaurant now, not a farm, not some kind of farm stand, not farm. Your own
tax assessor, that's not definitive. your your attorney will tell you that's not definitive, but it's a piece of evidence that helps what I'm saying. So, we don't even get to the Dover Amendment. We don't because this is not primarily a commercial agriculture
property. So, you can't ask for the protection of a farm when you're not really a farm. You're primarily an entertainment alcohol business and the farm is much much less. So, I don't see any way around that. Um, what we wanted,
we would hope to see what a few of you asked at the last meeting was numbers, dollar figures. How much money do you make from your bar and how much do you make from your farm? That would be something that would be helpful for your analysis. They did not give it to us. 24
pages plus an additional few pages today with still no numbers. They didn't give us the numbers cuz I'm sure they're terrible. I I I'm sure they're terrible. I mean, how much money do you make from all of your farming compared to how much money do you make from your um business
that's supposedly quote unquote in support of the farming? It's it's, you know, it's it's off the charts. So, um so I don't see how we get to um the Dover Amendment. If we did, then I I want to stress a couple things. He says
that the the tasting room is there to support our winery. The winery is not growing anything. I mean, I've given you the Harvard case that says that taking, you know, hops and yeast and barley and making into a beer is a form of manufacturing. The same would hold true
with a winery. What what is the growing when they say produce as you we talked about your your farm business? The same holds true with this uh amendment. Uh it's manufacturing is manufacturing and growing and raising is something else.
So you he's saying look at most of the stuff on our that we sell we made here. Well, isn't that nice? What if you had what if you had a clothing store and uh you made all the clothes in your farm? Is that okay? No. What matters is what
do you actually grow in the ground on your piece of land or what animals you raise on your piece of land. I I did another case where people brought in um food trucks. My farmer did my client brought in food trucks. I had to show
that 25% of the food in the food trucks came from animals that were slaughtered on my guy's property. Here he's got food trucks. How much of the food comes from was grown or raised? We don't know. He's got a winery. How much was raised from
his grapes? It never even gets to 25%. And it has to be at a minimum 25%. And and I believe someone showed me tonight um the menus of the wine. Most of it is not from his grapes. So I don't know, you know, how these numbers are
working. We don't have the cash numbers which we should get. In fact, you know, because you asked a specific question that they have not answered, some boards would say, "Okay, you're done." If you're not going to answer a question that we ask and you don't answer and it's a relevant question to the matters
before the board, that in and of itself could be enough to say goodbye. It's over. Um, I I think that the um so so so and when it comes to the room itself, if you get there, you shouldn't even have to get to the room, but if you
look at the charts that he put in with the um for the construction for the um the the materials on on the reconstruction of the building, they say part of it is storage. That's storage for manufactured goods. That's storage for the wine that they're making. And
and the tasting room is intricately related to the manufacturing. It's not related to the farm. You know, you got to understand that making stuff that is grown on the property is different than growing stuff on the property. They're conflating the two as if they're one and
the same. And they're not. Admittedly, if you had there's I cited to a case in my brief where there was an ice cream stand and and for a farmer, but most of the ice cream was coming from Connecticut. Most of the milk was coming from Connecticut. And they said, "You
can't do that." You know, uh, and they said, "You can come back here someday when you have most of your milk is going into your ice cream, but until then, you can't do that." But understand in that case it was clearly still a farm. Here
it you know here would be like you have the huge massive ice cream stand with a tiny tiny farm you know. So we don't even get to the analysis of how much percentage of his grapes are in the wine. If we do he doesn't have the
minimum. 25% of of what he's selling for wine has to be from grapes that are grown on his ground. 25%. I don't see that number right now. Also, the beer, if he's
selling beer, it should be that 25% of the hops and yeast and barley are grown there. And in the food, like I said, I've seen cases where towns have told me to have my food trucks that show that the food comes from my farmer's land.
None of them fit. So, none of these things fit. Um he he should have um appealed the the 2024 order. What did he do? He ignored the 24. That's what happened. You know, he he probably knew that the town select board wasn't about
to pay attorney Costa to go to land court, superior court. it's very expensive. And he said, "I'll just keep doing what I want to do. If they're not going to pay attorney cost to come after me, just keep doing it." Which is wrong, and you shouldn't support that. That's what happened. I I just don't see how
the Dover amendment applies at all because this is not primarily commercial agriculture. Once you get into the analysis, it doesn't work at all. There's no 25% of each of all the things he's selling has to be grown there. That doesn't happen. And you cannot equate
manufacturing on a on a foreign property as farming because it simply isn't. I I just don't see any way that this justified. You would be fully within your rights as a reasonable board to deny this application and even to say that the whole uh property shouldn't uh
not be operated as he's been doing. I just don't see any way around that. Thank you. Do you have any questions? Um beginning with the first part of your statements here regarding u not showing actual revenue numbers. Um reading the
the uh statute uh section 34K, it talks about percent of either volume or um [Applause] gross volume or volume gross volume
ultimately as I read the the statute the measurement is percent of whatever it is. So in my view the the fact that they didn't produce dollar numbers I think is irrelevant and that's my personal opinion only because you can
establish what the percentage based on the chart that was given to us by the applicant. Um I would like to go further on the question of Mr. Ding um pointed out that it does say
uh produced by the ROC of land for which the facil facility is located. So can you please expand upon grown versus produced? Yes. Not the same or no I mean first off we're talking about a farm. Okay. We're talking about a
farm. So when it's produced on the farm they don't mean manufacturing. They mean produced. That term means it's either grown on the farm or it's an animal that's raised on the farm. If there's a case that say otherwise, brother counsel should show us that because we're talking about a farm. When you say
something's produced on a farm, you're not talking about a factory that happens to be set up on the farm or a brewery or a winery. You're talking about materials that come from the farm. Producing something on a farm is either growing it or raising the animals. Um, also when
you when you talked about how we get to the numbers, and you're right, the the first sentence, by the way, has 312 words. It's a tricky statute. It's a very very tricky statute. But in the beginning, it says that it only applies to
commercial a property that is primarily a commercial >> primary purpose. >> Yes. Commercial. >> So yes, that's before you get to the analysis. So what what I'm saying is before you get to these number crunchings like we're doing. Before you
get there, you have to be on a piece of land that's primarily a farm. It can't be primarily a restaurant and just a little bit a farm. That in there's case that's what my the Richardson case I gave you was about. I mean, that guy had
a farm, but he was making much much more money from his land use as um, you know, earth and materials business than he was from the farm. So, they looked at that and said, "Oh, well, what are the percentages?" No, they didn't even get there. They just said, "We're not even going to get to the percentage analysis.
We don't have to because this piece of property is not primarily a farm. It's primarily an earth and materials business." And here the exact same thing works for this property. This is not primarily a farm really. How many employees are out
there full-time farming? How many buildings are full-time farming? How many how much money do they make from farming? None. None. None. None. It's it's primarily a restaurant. And that means we never even get to the analysis of the
numbers of the percentages because it doesn't apply. They just don't they're just not enabled to use the protections. And there's good protections in 4DA section 3, but they never get to it because they're not really a commercial farm. It's only a commercial farm that
can pro use this statute to protect itself from from the zoning that they would be doing otherwise. But this isn't really a commercial farm. >> Thank you. >> Sure. >> Yeah, absolutely. Mr. Chair,
>> I asked attorney this question as well and I hope you could expand upon it. >> Mhm. >> Uh and this is based on the fact that the cease and desist order was issued in 24 and the ramifications of not appealing that order at that point in
time. In your view, what is what are the ramifications if this court reconsiders that question whether or not this is actually protection under um legal amendment? >> I I think the board could do this. I think the board could say that um
they're doing an analysis about the appeal that's before them and find that um he doesn't fit the protections of 4A section 3. And you could say that in addition, we find that there's an outstanding
order that was never appealed that says exactly that. And um you know, I don't see that um any way around that. Um he simply apparently ignored the order. I
mean, I guess, you know, he knew it was going to be expensive for this town to appeal, not to appeal, but to try to enforce the order. the order's out there and he's just acting as if it's not out there and you can't do that. That's an affront to this board's dignity. I mean
to to the government. It's just saying I I don't care you know what what it says. I'm going to do what I want to do because you can't afford to go to land court. Nah nah nah. Which is very uh not a good way to do business. and this board should exercise their authority
and say that not only do you lose this appeal, but we're finding that the entire business is incorrect. >> Mr. Johnson, do you have any questions? >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. Are there any other speakers
like [Music] and I would remind you that it has already been discussed and I would ask for next >> uh Rich Daraki from Bachelor Street. I had a few comments on
the uh October 28th letter or memo that the applicant responded to the board in answering your questions. None of your questions were answered. As far as I'm concerned, I'm a retired CPA. I've dealt
with IRS on a regular basis. Now, the first comment I would say is that this is the first time I heard the applicant say that he takes his uh hay and basically gives it to I think he said
bar style uh farm in exchange for them selling his wine. That's called barter. That's illegal. You have to pay a tax on that. But the point is that and the IRS would like to know
that. But the point is that he's putting a value on those on that hay at such a low amount. Basically, he's giving it away. So I would say to you that you should not count any of that acreage
in total because that's one of the methods you use to determine whether they're a farmer or not. So he's giving it away. So it it should not count. The second thing I would say is that mast law always supersedes local bylaws.
Always. So you should always look at the mast law first. You can be more restrictive than state law, but you can't uh you can't be less than state law. So, if you go to
uh because I know there was a question about that. If you go to mass general law chapter 48 section 3, that's the section that's the mass general law that deals with the 25% that
we're talking about all the time. Now, they supplied 24page document. None of it was what the board requested. This board requested revenue and I think revenue is important. So you cannot tell
cuz one bottle of wine sells for $50. The rest of the wine sells for roughly $25. How do you compare that to hay and how do you compare that to hops? So and I think the law mentions revenue if I'm
not mistaken. >> We'll come back to that. Okay. And uh so if you look on page nine of their chart, they they again only show percentages, but this is the one sentence that really
struck me. It says accordingly, Wine House derives well over 80% of all revenue from the sale of wine produced on the property. Now, that's a lie. And they don't produce over 80%
on the property. They even tell you up above wine produced from grapes grown on site 15.51% in 2024, 17.98% in 2025.
Now, assuming those are correct, which you can't tell unless you know what the revenue is, they're they're telling you that of the wine they produced
on site, 15.51% was sold. So, right away they're telling you they produce less than 25%. Because if you look at master law 48 section 3, it tells you 25% has to be grapes that
come from the ground on the area that you're talking about and they don't have more than 15%. That they're that they say, but it can't be verified unless you know what the revenue is. But I just wanted to point out those
points. >> Okay, let me clarify the um the statement you made regarding the revenue. Um section 3 does not specifically say the revenue. It says the percent of the revenue or the volume. So it's not
required to my view, my reading of it, this does not require mentioning number of dollars because you can calculate the percentage and give a good indication as to if you're meeting the 25% rule for it yet or not. So in my view, you don't need to put the actual revenue and I
don't think it would be appropriate to do so quite frankly. >> Well, this board asked them for the revenue number one. Number two, >> yes, I understand. How do you know those percentage are percentages are correct unless you have the revenue? >> Well, that would be the green version,
wouldn't it? >> That's right. It would. >> So, I I don't have any personally I have no doubt that the numbers are not accurate in terms of percentages and I think that's the key of the of the problem. >> Does anyone have any questions for Mr.
Dick? >> No, Mr. Chairman. I just Mr. Mr. made a statement that the state law applies first. I disagree with the dober amendment. Um and the dober amendment is the common name for the Massachusetts general law. This law exempts
agriculture, religious and magical use from certain zoning restrictions when ling zoning requirements apply to land and structures and all these uses. You know, it goes on and on. But so it seems like the do it is pretty, you know, >> well, it's mad. He just said, right? He
just said it trucks the local zoning laws, >> right? >> Yeah. Thank you for that. >> Anyway, >> anything else? >> Mr. George, you recognized.
Okay. A couple statements was made at the previous hearing concerning the uh plants and stuff. Mr. Tronkey purchased the land in September 2020. There was no grapes being grown on the land in September 2020.
If you recall, Mr. Chairman, I gave you uh copies of bottles that had wine dated 2020 and 2021 on them. that was bottled at the wine house. Right on. Mr. Trumpy never had a license to 2022.
In addition to that, his license, which is the 13B that we we talked about, requires him to file yearly with the ABCC on the amount of revenue he's producing.
So if you want the revenue, you should be able to get them from your local liquor authority, our guys, or go to ABCC. But also within that when we look by volume like you said, we reviewed the uh
wine list on 7 October and backwards and the wine house has produced 16 different types of wine since uh 2020.
Out of the 16 types of wine, only one came from the wine house grapes. By Massachusetts labeling, you have to state where it comes from. Massachusetts has a 75% requirement. Well, the state of California, where all the other
grapes came from, I should say the other 15 uh came from California grapes. If you're going to state the code on them for AVA, that means 85% of those grapes have to be in that bottle.
There's your volume right there. So, if you figure out the volume based upon that, um 93.5% of all the grapes came from California. 6.5% came from the actual wine house itself.
And if you want the the cost, uh, I don't know what the ABC is going to tell you for the years 2020 and 2021. If he doesn't have a license, I'd be very surprised if he put anything in for revenue in those two years. But you have
pictures of the bottles that we collected that say 2020 and 2021 on. And like I say, as the volume goes, 16 types of wine have been manufactured, produced, whatever you want to say, by
the wine house. Only one came from the Wine House grapes. That means 93.5% came from um California. I just talking volume. So you won't you didn't want me to say anything else, so I'm not finished.
>> Yeah, absolutely. >> I want to thank you for your comments. However, I also want to bring to a point that u uh the statute says gross dollar sales or volume percent revenue is the dollar amounts nothing. Uh we are
relying upon the fact that number one is accurate number one and number two percentages is all we're looking for. Um second point is that whether or not he is producing wine or selling wine without license is not a question for the board. That's a question for
selecting the city licensing authority. So we have nothing to consider regarding that. >> Okay. But I would just state in the zoning bylaws if he's manufacturing at at 16 West uh East State Street, he's
violating our bylaws because if you're manufacturing there, >> again, we're not searching for violations. That's administering. >> Well, I was just sticking to zoning, that's all. Any questions? >> Mr. Chairman, I got a question for
>> Absolutely. I hear a lot about, you know, 11 acres of hay versus the 15 acres. Is there any state statute that says a farm needs to be profitable, a farm needs to turn a profit? I mean,
what I'm getting at to me, it's irrelevant whether he bails the hay and sells it for 50 cents a bail or $5 a bail. A farm to farm to farm. There's that's where I'm going with this. >> Sure. >> I mean, you I can have a class 3 junkyard license and not sell any parts
to still be a junkyard, >> right? >> Without selling parts. So that that's I just is there any state statutes that the farm needs to be profitable and needs to sell their product to make a profit and if they don't they're not a farm? >> Yeah. >> Okay. Thank you.
Uh, similar to that, if I may, um, because I asked both attorneys regarding this question, were the ramifications of this board considering whether or not we're making a determination as to whether or not this property or specifically the tasting room is
protected on the door. >> So, Mr. Chairman, you and I have had this conversation um, but obviously hasn't been shared with the board because we had good conversations outside of public meeting. Um the matter before you is complicated many things you don't know already. Um there's a lot
of moving parts. Um in its simplest form, what has been requested of you is to overturn a decision issued by your building commission. Uh that decision is a letter. We refer to it as the missing information letter because that's the title at the top of the page. and it
identifies uh a number of issues or problems um associated with the use of what we've been referring to as the data. Uh five in particular. Three of those five were building code related and so they're not important because they've been resolved first of all. Second of all, even if they hadn't been
resolved, they wouldn't come to you because building code issues go to go to the state building code appeals board if they're challenged. So the two issues that remain of those five are the issues that are coming before you. There are only two. Issue number one is a statement and I'm gonna I don't want to quote it wrong or incorrectly. So I'm
gonna just read directly from the document itself. So the first one is a statement and again I'm going to read it verbatim. Uh after reviewing the permit application submitted May 8th, 2025 for change of use at 16 street in
Grand, I would like to remind you that a site plan review by the planning board is still required. Please get on the planning board's agenda as soon as possible to resolve this. So that's the first question. Is site plan review required for the change of use of this tasting room from what it was before,
which I understand to be some sort of storage building, to what it is now, which is a tasting room. So that's question one. Question two is actually the last of the five items in that same letter. And again, I'm going to read it verbatim. It says, it's a couple of sentences, four sentences. It says,
"Lastly, I have found a special permit issued for a garage/ storage building exceeding 1,000 square ft in area." This was attached to the deed. It stipulates that no business or industry is conducted there from or therein as
defined under zoning bylaw accessory uses. I was not able to find any appeal indicating a change to this restriction. Please provide this and if not, appeal to the ZBA within 30 days. So this is the second question. This uh special
permit which we now know is a permit from 2010 that refers to this building now the tasting room previously referred to as a garage or storage building. There's a condition in that special permit that says no business or registry conducted is the current use does the
current use constitute business registry. So those are the two issues before you. Now you might be asking well okay thanks for telling me that but that wasn't my question. My question was, can we address this dober issue? Is it properly before us? Well, that's not really what's before you, but I think
it's to use the the the adage you did a bit earlier. I think it's the elephant in the room. I'm not sure how you address and I'm not sure that the applicants council or the neighbors council or anybody else in the room knows how you address these issues without delving into this topic of agricultural use. That's why the very
first correspondence you received from attorney during on behalf of the applicant within the first page of that correspondence went right at this as an agricultural use that's protected under no same thing with council for the applicant uh excuse me for the neighbors arguing the opposite of what was
presented by the applicant. So I think for you to determine whether or not this use is a use that requires cycling review, for you to determine whether that special permit restriction on business or industry is applicable, I think you have to determine whether or
not the do amendment applies and that in and of itself has multiple parts and is a confusing inquiry. Okay. Okay. Well, for the Dober amendment to apply and to supersede any restrictions or uh uh provisions of your bylaw that might establish other standards, you have to determine first, and this is what you
heard from attorney first, that the primary purpose of the use of this property and the let's just say the property for now is commercial agriculture. Okay, so that's question one. And then number two, you have to look at this tasting room, this component of the operation and say, is
that part of that? If you determine yes the primary purpose of the of the property is commercial agriculture. Is this tasting room part of that agricultural operation? If so and if that agricultural operation is the primary purpose of the site well then it's protected under the dome. But
even if the primary purpose of the site is agriculture if you determine that the tasting room is not part of that agricultural operation because what's occurring within the tasting room is not agricultural. Well then you have to determine whether it's accessory to agriculture. We talked about that at the last meeting. I gave you the quote from a land court case that talked about the
definition of accessory use. It's customary and it's incidental to the principal use. To put it more simply, you have to find the nexus, a connection, you know, connect the the dots from the accessory use to the principal use, the primary use. Is there
is there a connection between the two that is strong enough that it can be deemed accessory to the principal use? And if so, even if it's not itself itself agricultural, it can also fall under the protections of the dominant. So I I think it's difficult for you to ignore those questions. I know that
there have been some procedural issues raised. I'm not not speaking to those right now. I'm happy to speak to them. We've talked about the timeliness of this application. We talked about the letter that was issued back in 2024 um by by Damon Cody, the former building uh inspector. Those are procedural
issues that go to the very question of whether this issue is properly before you. putting those aside for the moment and assuming just for the sake of argument that this uh application this attempt to overturn uh the the uh May 31st letter is properly before you
that's that's the analysis you need to perform. I think uh in my opinion you have to first look to the agricultural exemption do amendment determine how and if it applies and that will inform your decisions on these two provisions of the letter and whether these two provisions
should stand or should be overturned. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. So to clarify the and I'm not there's a lot of stuff going on whether you know the entertainment and the you know that's
whether you agree with it or disagree with it or whatever but to clarify the two questions before us is is a winery agricultural is hanging agriculture is that agriculture and if it is agricultural that's not an
industry that's not a business so That's kind of but kind of get get what you're saying is that that or am I struggling here? >> No, I think you're struggling a bit. So So I don't think and I will tell you as a matter of law a winery is agriculture,
right? The case law says wineries are agriculture. >> Correct. So that's actually a little bit more nuanced than that. It's is the primary purpose of this site, this property as a whole. Is the primary purpose of this site commercial agriculture? Now that can be winery, that can be haying, that
can be uh far farming for for for growing corn, it can be any any type of agricultural operation or aquaculture or horiculture, any of the things that are captured by the statute. So question one is is the primary purpose of this site agricultural even putting aside for a moment the specific use of the tasting
room? If your answer to that question is no, I think the inquiry ends there. It's not protected under the bill. >> Correct. If your answer is, well, yes, the primary purpose is agriculture because we think there's enough hay or there's enough of agricultural operation occurring on the site. Well, then you focus in on the tasting room. Okay,
that's great. So, the primary purpose of the site is agriculture, commercial agriculture. What about the tasting room? Is that part of the agricultural operation? If so, you're done. It's protected by the do. If you're not so sure because you say well you know there's no agriculture going on in the tasting room or we don't consider what's
happening in the tasting room to be agriculture and that's an analysis you have to you have to make well then that doesn't mean the inquiry stops there then say yeah but is it accessories it can is it sufficiently related to the agricultural operation that we can say it's it's priceable under the
>> Thank you further clarify that your original statement was there were basically two questions before us that is based on the first uh uh three four paragraphs, excuse me, on the missing information.
Um and that has to do with uh the second land review requirement is the fundamental question, right? And then you're talking about the last paragraph regarding the special permit issued in 2010. So could you please clarify for
the board? Uh do we vote to uphold that or reject that or can you give us some guidance in terms of how we deal with that problem >> with respect to the business or industry reference? Is that correct? >> Sure. So the ZBA issued a decision as I
understand it um special. I have it somewhere in my many many many papers on this case um that had this restriction to business or industry with respect to its allowance of this uh garage/ storage building. Um if the garage/ storage building now the tasting room is being
used for an agricultural purpose either because it is it itself part of the primary agricultural purpose on the site or it's being used in a manage accessory to that. I would say that and this goes to something said by by one of the residents about the the fact that in
most instances and I'm gonna I'm gonna add a bit of nuance to it. In most instances when there are conflicts between state statute and your local bylaw, the state statute controls. There are some instances where the state statute can serve either as what we call a floor or a ceiling and allow you to provide greater or lesser protection
because that's how it's worded. But in most instances when there's a true conflict, state statute controls and I think that there's a little bit of that in this case. you have a bylaw that talks, for example, I already heard it in reference today about farm businesses and has this 50% standard. I don't think that's particularly relevant in this
case because the parties aren't arguing that the farm business standard is what applies. They'll correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think they're arguing that this is a foreign business or that that provision of your zoning bylaw is what they're attempting to latch on to to give you protection. They're citing the state statute and state statute doesn't establish this 50% test for a
farm business. Uh state statute talks about agricultural uses. It does talk about um the sale of agricultural products on a site that is dedicated to agriculture. That's when we get into these percentages and I'm going to hold my comment on that because I have thought that's even relevant here. But
there there is some mention of that in the in the in the in the state statute. But this is a do amendment case as I understand it. So if you've got a provision in in a decision from 2010 that restricts the use of this building to no business or industry and the
business or industry that's occurring is an agricultural business or an agricultural industry. I'm not sure agricultural industry but is is agriculturally related the state statute controls. And so in my mind if it's determined to be agricultural then that restriction is no longer applicable. I
don't think it requires action by this board to rescend the restriction of a board 15 years ago. I don't think that would be appropriate in these circumstances. I know I think that was referenced maybe in attorney during submitt that that would be an alternative avenue for the board would be to to overturn the decision
reverse the decision of the I guess in effect that's what you would be doing by by virtue of stating that um that Mr. Quintland's decision was wrong. Um but again it wouldn't even be quite saying it's wrong. would be saying, "We've made a determination that the use is agricultural or is accessory to
agriculture, and therefore we've determined that this restriction in the 2010 special permit is not applicable to the use of the tasting room if it's being used for this agricultural purpose." But again, I just made a bunch of assumptions there. You would have to you would have to be make all those conclusions or reach all those
conclusions before you would get to the point of invalidating in effect the 2010 restriction. Thank you for clarifying those. >> My apologies. Is it still open to the public? Have we moved?
>> It is. One second, please. >> Go ahead, sir. >> Your name and address, please. >> My name is M Loviaak. I live at 16 Phillips Circle, Graanby, Massachusetts. Uh I've lived in Graanby since 2015. I
lived at 109 Pleasant Street. Um and I work as a physician assistant at Bay State uh in cardiac surgery. So it's highly likely someone here has a direct relative I've taken care of and I'm citing all these things because I'm
trying to explain that I have a deep connection to this community. I chose to build in Graanby because uh of the character of the town, of the
involvement of its citizens, and I also about 2 years ago came up against the town when it came to building our new home in regards to having an in-law suite for my mother-in-law to live with us, Damen Cody, who's been uh I think
cited as having made a decision I think based off zoning bylaw primarily uh and administered a cease and desist. He similarly went down the same avenue against us and ultimately that was found to not be the
case that his interpretation of the zoning bylaw was correct. And I think that is important to know because he's not really here to explain it further what he was actually trying to do. But in my interactions with him, a lot of
things were done off the books. Now, this all being said, when I live two streets away and can hear music off in the distance, I sometimes wonder why
there is or I understand why there is so much fascination of the disturbance. Um, and typically I'm in this deep meditation back when I'm building my house and my generator, which has to be louder than
any music anyone's playing with the exception of my neighbor who's leafblowing his dog excrement onto my property, is I just get thrown off. You know, what if I'm what if my sons decide that they
want to play an instrument? and is is this what I'm going to have to come up against time and again um to try and support them. uh the winehos is congruent with in my interpretation of course this is a complete appeal to
the emotion and you know on top of the irrationality of it all already and ad hominant against a previous building commissioner but it's congruent with the character of the town and to see things like this something so
novel and you know in my opinion exciting ing and a place of gathering is important because I have two sons who have special needs and I somehow find myself living in a town with the second most underfunded prek system in the
entire state. I can move to an inner city 20 minutes away and we get more services for their individual educational plans. I I have a a tough time wondering about the future of our town if we are not diversifying our tax
base. If we're not encouraging places like farms who are going to be innovative and come up with different ways to be able to establish more funding for the school system, for the
services we need and refocus the trajectory of Graanby and kind of get with the fact that we need more resource stewardship, a little less focus on highly complex septic systems that don't have any sort of research to support or
really scientific basis to support their use. There's other places I think we can really start to grow more as a community. So, I want to thank everyone for taking the time to, you know, flesh this out. It's nuance is an understatement. It's incredibly complex
and I I wish you all the best in trying to come to a decision that's fair. Thank you. Also, can you speak to it? >> Yes, sir. Mir, did you sign in? >> I did. Yes.
And your name and address? >> Uh, Dave Cody, 70 Cold Hill Road. Moved to town. Same thing about several years ago. Um, and I didn't heard about this controversy cuz we stopped by, wife and I visit the wine house once in a while. We find it to be a great addition to the
town. I was quite surprised of all the upwards going on and I understand the residence probably has more issues. I live on Cold Hill Road and I don't hear the music or anything, but I'd have to say that uh listening to the arguments back and forth, I think it's a I think the town obviously uh the more
attractions you can bring to your town that that bring value, it's going to bring in um future residents like myself and others. you can still have that farming community and still but have a little bit of uh you know uh places to go and and for entertainment especially
and and to have a glass of wine and I was listening to the discussion about the percentages of grapes and all this stuff you're going through right I I'd ask you to go any farm stand including the ones all in this town and you will not find that 100% of the products in that farm are from that farm um in fact
beneath me below my where my property is is Bree Acres And they and Evelyn's got a great farm there and we love her dearly and support her a lot. But she has things from other farms in the area. The corn comes from Hadley. Tomatoes come from over here. And what the farmers do is they all work together.
Much like they're talking about Jim or I guess traded hay for this or whatever. That's pretty common in the farming business. I just want to bring that forward. Two things is that one, I don't think you'll find a farm stand that has 100% of their products coming from their farm. Okay? It's just not going to
happen. And then uh and so they all worked together like community farming and I think having some things in the town. I thought the wine house my wife and I were very happy and opened up to bring something to town cuz there's very few places to go for entertainment in this town, you know. So uh I think that
it's uh to to the gentleman's point just before me, it's it's a nuance. It's a farm. He's growing hay, growing grapes, and he's producing uh a product of wine. And it seems like the wine might be the bigger problem than anything else the way people are speaking about it. Okay. Whether you So, if you're producing
honey, we may not be having this discussion or something. You know what I mean? So, I don't know. I just think that uh I just think that it's it's it not I think you can have a farm. It can be a farm stand. You don't have to have 100% of your products come off your farm. And I just think it brings a lot
of value to the town. That's my Thank you for your comments. You appreciate our position where we have to make black and white decisions out of shades of gray. >> What's that? I said we had to make black and white decisions about shades of gray. >> Yeah, that's that's challenge. I agree. Yeah,
>> I think that's number two. Chair, may I ask a question to you of of Attorney Costa? >> Yes. With his res, I thought you referenced statement that the winery itself was agricultural. Does that matter as to whether percentages of
grapes going into the winery are from the appellent or not? just he could build a winery there and make take grapes from California and that would be agricultural. >> No, that wasn't uh through you, Mr. Chair. So, that wasn't the the point of the statement that I was making that you could you could bring in grapes and uh
essentially create a manufacturing operation on the site caller winery. Uh the point I was making is that throughout Massachusetts you've got true wineries um where you've got um vineyards that are are operating vineyards and you've got tasting rooms much like what is is suggested here that
are operating as part of that winery operation overall. Um you know when we talk about percentages I want I want to use that as a as sort of a jumping off point because there's been we spent probably more than 50% of this time discussing tonight these percentages 25% 50%. Um, I I just want to put that in a
bit of context because understandably and as uh attorney acknowledged at one point in his remarks, you know, this section of the statute, this this provision in the Dober amendment uh is incredibly complex. It's it's a I think it's a a single runon sentence of
something of like 330 words um with horrid amount of punctuation and some instances where it doesn't belong. So, it's very difficult to to interpret the statute. But in its essence, what the statute does is it protects agricultural operations that are commercial in nature
and are the primary purpose of the site in question. It then goes on to say after it lays that out, and I've got the statute in front of me, so it talks about specifically, no, nor shall any such ordinance or bylaw prohibit, unreasonably regulate, or require a special permit for the use of land for
the primary purpose of agriculture. But then it goes on to say including those facilities for the sale of produce, wine, and dairy products. And then over the course of the next 15 lines in the statute talks about this
25% test. That's going to be 25% of um the uh revenue or uh or or volume of what's produced occurring during the primary um uh growth season of the principal crop. Or as an alternative,
you can go with this 2550 50% split where 25% is uh on an annual basis where 25% is from the owner or leie of the property with an additional 50% being from other Massachusetts farms. These provisions concerning percentage 25% or
2550% they apply to this is this section of the statute is often referred to as the farm stand section. It is separate and it follows the general protection of commercial agricultural uses and it's really aimed at farm stands again facilities for the sale of produce, wine and dairy farms. So certainly you can
take all that into consideration if and only if you are considering and I know this is an argument that attorney has made uh if you're considering the use of the tasting room to be in effect a farm stand a facility for the sale of produce, wine and dairy and products.
Now it can be characterized as that I suppose because that is as I understand it partly what's occurring within the tasting room. I also understand from some of the submittals I've seen that the objections about what's occurring in the tasting room is that arguably it does more it's more than just selling
produce wine and dairy products it's hosting the functions. It's their entertainment license. They have food trucks on site. So there are things of that things of that sort that have been brought up as well. So I I just want to be sure that when you are talking revenue numbers that if you're applying
your revenue numbers to the tasting room specifically, it's because you're considering a facility for the sale of produce, wine, and dairy products. That wasn't quite fleshed out when we talked about this four or five weeks ago. You were talking about revenue numbers and the board specifically requested revenues or percentages from the
applicant. But my understanding were leaving that meeting was that the primary or the objective of requesting that information was you wanted to use it in a more generic sense to decide whether or not this site as a whole was
being principally used or primarily used for agricultural purposes or whether there was other revenue generated with the site as a whole. That was going to cause you to reach a different conclusion that the site was being used for something different. that much of the revenue generated from the site was
from events that were being conducted and hosted on hosted on site or bands that were were playing on site or food trucks were being brought on the site as opposed to the actual agricultural operation. So you can use the numbers in that sense uh much more subjective. there's no numerical or or or objective
standard in the statute for you to look at those revenue numbers uh or percentages and apply those to the site as a whole to say is the primary purpose of this site commercial agriculture or not. If you're going to apply the 25 and 2550% rule, you're only doing that if you're considering this tasting room to
be essentially a retail operation for the sale of of produce, wine, or dairy products. >> I have to follow up on that. Going back to the fund fundamental two questions, am I correct in understanding that that question number one regarding the site
plan review um would be effectively overturning the building Richard and that would require a majority super majority vote. >> Uh that's correct. So regardless of which of these questions it is, if you are going to vote to go against the the
the uh the wording, the conclusions, the order that uh is has been issued by virtue of this missing information letter to effectively overturn or reverse it. It requires either a four out of five or a five out of five supermajority vote of five. >> And what about the second question?
Effectively reversing a prior zoning board decision, does that also require >> it? It does because again you're not I certainly would not advise you to structure it as reversing and you you use the careful word effectively reversing, right? Because you while you are effectively reversing, that's not
how I would recommend that you phrase your motion. If you determined, for example, that this was an agricultural use, and therefore as an agricultural use, that this restriction on no business or industry didn't apply, I would have you take a vote to that effect, reversing the building inspector's requirement that there be
some evidence produced or some change of the restriction produced because you've concluded that there is no change in the restriction. That restriction was ineffectual because it can't override state statute. >> Okay. >> But that would also require a supermajority. Yes. And what about um
the opposite of that if that we uh how we decide that that is not a agricultural use >> does that also I mean with that scenario >> sure so you still have the same two questions to answer right so if you
determine that it's uh either the site is not being used for the primary purpose of commercial agriculture or that it is but that this tasting room doesn't qualify as protected either as part of that operation or accessory of that operation. Okay, so you've answered that preliminary question of the
agricultural protection is not applying. You still have to answer these questions of okay, does this use require site plan review and uh is this use permissible or is it restricted as business or industry? I think that I would almost recommend if you get to that point, and I'm not saying that you should, but if
you were to get to that point, I would almost recommend that you answer those in reverse order because I think if you if you answer the second one first as to whether or not business or industry is permitted and you conclude that based on the 2010 special permit, it's prohibited. Doesn't that sort of answer your question about site plan review being required? Cycl review of what?
Prohibited use, it's not allowed there. I don't think that it's much easier to answer that question than if you prohibited use. But again, it's only if you determine the agricultural protections that apply and that the provisions of the 2010 special permit therefore stand
Mr. C. Question was was the issue of the site plan review appealed or is that something that's still effective in the order? So 30, Mr. Chairman. to my understanding and again
attorney Jerry's here so he can speak for himself but in reading his letter um the first of them and then there was a second and a third uh the first letter quickly moved into the question of agricultural use exemption and the do amendment etc um but I found references
within that document to both of these provisions the change of use triggering cycling review and the belief that that wouldn't be required as well as this issue of the 2010 special permit so I I view that correspondence as being sufficient enough to put really this whole letter in question. Um it was a
challenge to this missing information letter that was clear. The other three items here, fire department approval, board of health sign off and uh a site visit for the site engineer. Those were all related to the building permit change of use and all those issues have been resolved and the building permit change of use is issued. So those are
are move points. But the other two issues I believe are very much appropriately before the board. >> One more starting. I'm sorry, Attorney Costa. How should the board or
what advice would you give the board pertaining to the 2024 order which would move might move the entire >> Do you want me to address those issues? Please do. Okay. So, um so there were two I I I made passive reference to these a few minutes back. Um there were
two sort of procedural issues that have been raised to you by council by concern math. Um, one was the 2024 letter issued by Damian Cody. Um, and I've got a copy of that here as well because I do want to reference it because I know that there were some questions raised by one of the board members as well. Um, and
then the question that the timeliness of this appeal because it was submitted during the week when I understand the town clerk was on vacation. So, um, I view both of these as jurisdictional issues and fortunately for you as a ZBA, you don't have to deal with jurisdictional issues very often. Courts deal with them all the time and
attorneys love them because we get to resolve cases without having to ever get to the merits because we can win on a what what what lay people call technicalities. Um well those are jurisdictional issues and so um if this case was not filed in time if this appeal was not filed within 30 days of
the May 31st letter uh the missing information letter um that's a fatal that means it was not timely appealed and therefore it's not properly before you and you have no authority to act on it. Uh similarly, if the appeal is challenging an issue or raising a question uh that is an issue that had
been the subject of a letter from back in 2024 that was not timely appealed, then similarly it could it would not be properly for you. Um unfortunately in this case, nothing is black and white as we've already said. Um I'm going to address maybe the simpler of the two first, which is the timeliness of this
appeal in light of the fact that your town clerk was on vacation. The law is clear. When you make a filing of an application that is an administrative appeal, you've got to do so within 30 days of the order that you're appealing, you have to file it with the town clerk's office and then you have to file it with the zoning board of appeals because that's the board to which you're
submitting your application with typically with a courtesy copy to the building official if you're challenging your building official determination. That's the proper process. Um there is case law. I think it was referenced by attorney Mclofflin uh maybe by attorney as well. can recall at our last session
of the public hearing relative to what suffices for submitt because as you might imagine and this happens more the further west in our state you go when you have smaller and smaller communities they often don't have full-time staff full-time town clerks limited town hall office hours uh there are often
challenges uh for applicants uh for challengers for uh their council when they show up at town hall and town hall's closed and it's the last day of their appeal period or the day before the last day of their appeal period There are cases where council have hunted down town clerks and knocked on their front door and said, "Here you go.
You're on notice." Um, I don't know all the particulars of what occurred here, although I know both council have their own perspectives on what occurred. My understanding from what attorney had presented last time, uh, was that this was meant to be submitted to the town clerk's office, but the town clerk was on vacation for the week. uh and as a
consequence it was submitted I think to the town administrator's office or the >> board of health agent was the one who stated as received at the desk of the town but I'm going to address that in our refinance in terms of deliberations >> okay so I mean I think I think the issue
there for the board is is that sufficient does that constitute a fing of the town clerk because the town clerk was on vacation and somebody else stood at the town clerk's desk and standed in for the town clerk in the town clerk's absence for what it's worth I will tell you I think that there are there There are two sides to this argument. On the one hand, yes, I guess you could say
that's not strict statutory compliance. Uh on the other hand, I think there has to be a recognition that your town clerk can't decide she's going to go or he's going to go on a two week vacation. And I don't think this was two weeks. I think this was only one week and therefore preclude all appeals because the town clerk is gone. What if the town clerk leaves for 30 days? What if the town clerk is on maternity leave for 4
months? No, you can file applications for 4 months. So, there has to be a process that exists to to to supplant the process that would otherwise um be available. and I don't know whether that's what happened here. So I think that those are the two the the flip sides of that point. Um with respect to
um to Mr. Kobe's letter from back in uh 2024 decision on June 25th um a couple of things. So I I think I heard something a reference was made earlier to um you can't appeal straight to court and we're talking about exhausting um and that's absolutely correct. So the
doctrines refer to as the as the the exhaustion of administrative revenues. you have to exhaust your administrative revenues, your your revenues locally before you go off to court. So, if you're dissatisfied with a decision, an order you receive from a building official. You can't simply appeal that straight to court under Massachusetts
law. You have to appeal it first to the ZBA, much has been done here, like what has been done here. And then the ZBA gets its bite at the apple. And once the ZBA decides, well, then it can be appealed to court if uh the the appealing party is still dissatisfied. So notice the violation that issued back
on June 25th of 2024. Um two attorney point did say please contact this office within 5 days and received this letter. So it didn't suggest that there would be some sort of ongoing dialogue. Um again the flip side to that is that if you read a couple sentences earlier it says if you're a brief by this decision you
have the right to appeal before the zoning board of appeals and goes on to say that an appeal shall be made within 30 days. So it was right there in the letter and there was no appeal made within 30 days. So, if this were a straight attempt by attorney during to file an appeal of the June 25th, 2024
notice of violation, but that's how this was structured and this had been submitted in June of this year, I would be clearly advising this board that it's not within your jurisdiction. Uh, it's a year too late a year or at that point it would have been 11 months to right.
That's not what's happened here. What's happened here is an additional letter was issued by a subsequent the successor building inspector. Uh and the successor letter was was termed a missing information letter and highlighted these issues of the need for site planning
approval and this issue of the 2020 special permit not being complied with because of the business or industry occurring within the tasting room. Uh and it also said that there could be an appeal to the zone of appeals within 30 days. So the reason we're addressing the agricultural exemption and the do
amendment is because I think it's very difficult to address those two issues without again addressing the element of the road. How do you talk about whether site review is required if we don't discuss whether this is entitled to protection of the dome? How do we discuss whether that 2010 special permit
still stands that condition stands if we don't discuss whether this is an agricultural use? So, it is some may say a backdoor to challenging the decision from back in June of 2024. And I can appreciate that argument. I think the flip side is another letter did issue,
another letter issued referring to a appeal option to the ZBA and it's those determinations that have been appealed to the ZBA and not really a direct challenge to the 2024 letter that was issued by Dian. Yes, sir.
>> Just a minor clarification, although I believe you don't salute it, Adam, we did submit a request for a determination to the building inspector on April 25th, 2025, whether the missing information letter was appropriately a response to that request for a written determination
from the building inspector. I think that can be um discussed, but there was a procedural step that we attempted to and I don't that that may be true. I don't have any information personally as to whether the letter that was issued by
um uh what was the date on the letter the missing information 31st letter that uh that Mr. issued. I have no information whether the position we had a response to anything or not and he's not here to speak for himself. So that may very well be the case.
>> Um that I can confirm that that happened. But I'd also like to get clarification regarding my understanding is you can request all you want. Is that correct in terms of requesting letter? >> So so so yeah. So, so the law I mean as
you can probably appreciate um the law favors some degree of finality so that the language the courts have used is that litigants shouldn't have to uh repeatedly go to the barricades to make the same argument over and over over again. Um so um what is what is clear is
that if a determination issues and a party that has a right to appeal that determination doesn't appeal it within whatever time frame is provided in this case 30 days that party can't effectively restart the clock whenever they want by submitting a request for that same determination. I can't wait 6 months and say, "Oops, I missed my
30-day window." So, now I'm going to just submit a request asking for a determination. I know what the answer is going to be because it's going to be the same answer I got 6 months ago and I didn't bother to repeal it. And then I'm going to appeal it then. They can't restart the clock themselves. Otherwise, they could do that at any time. And again, I'm not suggesting that's what happened what has happened here. But
your point is correct that if that is what happened, then no, that would not legitimize it necessarily. But again, the flip side to that is Mr. Mr. Quinnland did issue a further letter on May 31st and it doesn't really address the same issues as Mr. Cody's letter had issued a year earlier. Uh it
speaks to site plan review and to a 2010 special permit restricting business or industry. Um it just so happens that in order to address those issues, we kind of have to look at the use of the site and determine whether it qualifies for do amendment protection. >> All right.
That being said, uh, one more speaker, please. Your name and address. My name is Philip Laflin, 12 Phillips Circle here in town. I thank all of you for taking a minute
to listen to me. We bought our home in ' 09. I think we've been there 17 years, something like that. Um, before that, Luca Town in '91, lived at 136 South Street. That was 3,000 ft away
from the property where the wine house is. I'm currently 1,900 ft away. I'm about a third of a mile away. It wasn't brought up a lot at this meeting, but at other meetings that I've watched, people are complaining about the noise. Now, I don't have a problem with it. The trucks
on on uh East Street, triacles, trailer trucks definitely louder. Airplanes definitely louder. The train in Holio is louder than the music that comes from the Wine House and along with the train in Belchure Town. 5:00 every day, the bass
plays their uh national anthem or whatever it is they play. I'm not complaining about any of those sounds. I'm comparing them. They are all louder than what I hear at my house that comes from the wine house. I can hear some music. Do I know what song it is? I
can't I can't tell cuz it's too far away. It's not loud enough for me to understand what it is. Has it put a damper on my life? Absolutely not. Not even a little bit. I think the town should be looking for businesses like
the Wine House. And this is totally unbiased because one, I don't drink. You know, I used to I don't drink anymore, but I have been to the wine house. I've never paid a penny for anything in that place ever,
but I've met friends. I've met family there. It's clean. It's new. It fits in this town. It's wellrun. It's a It's a just a nice place. Now, as far as I'm concerned, that's a
totally unbiased opinion of mine, and everyone has opinions, and I've heard people that live farther away from the wine house than I do complain about their life being destroyed over the music. I I I guess everyone has opinions. That
wine house has not bothered me one bit. living at 136 South Street from 91 to09. You could hear dogs because that property was a kennel. That was 3,000 fe uh uh 3,000 ft away. Sometimes you'd
hear dogs 24 hours a day depending on whatever dog they had. That dog's in a kennel. He's pissed. He's he's barking. We lived Philip Circle at 12 in 09. It was still a kennel. You could still hear the dogs. You could hear the dogs 100 times more than you ever hear music from
this wine house. The wine houses brought car shows for free with no admission. That's great. I'd love to see them get bigger and better. Uh the little bit of music is off before dark when they do have it. I think this town should be looking for more businesses like that to
to offset taxes. Instead, what I see from the outside is a business trying to make it and running into hurdles that should not exist. I think this is a a it should be just a a no a non-topic. The
guy should run his business. And uh Dakota, you know real estate. Bill, I don't think anyone knows towing more than you. You both you guys know I grew up on a farm. I know farming. And if they want to angle on the percentage of
crops, I'll give you two things. The percentage of crops coming out of the ground and go after a farm like that, you might as well shut every farm out down in this in this state because farms get products from other farms. And do you think when uh when you can't make
money in the winter, you're selling Christmas trees? Do you think the farm grew the Christmas trees when they don't have a single one on their property? And I do know looking from the outside in, the wine house planted grapes. I've seen apples. I've planted them. You don't get
apples for 3 4 years. This guy's not going to come up with this product like out of nowhere. And then the angle that they're whacking this guy with is just absurd. He's a growing business that's trying to make it in this town. Why they
have to go after him, I don't know. But it's a hurdle he has to go through. And I hope you all decide in his favor because I think it's a good clean business that people come from other towns to go to.
Without business, we will have no tax offset ever. I think that's about all I have to say. >> Thank you for your help. And you sign [Music] Nathan Laflam. Uh 286 Taylor Street,
Graanby. So, first I want to thank the board for your community service. It's a thankless unpaid job and I understand we don't get paid. >> But I'm sure every one of you joined for the same reason. You wanted to better
Graanby and I understand that and I know one thing that betters Graanby and it's the White House. I speak for the silent majority. And the silent majority, the thousands, if not tens of thousands of people that have
visited the White House, have left with a positive experience and good memories. Thousands of people, they're just not here tonight because we live our lives humbly. We don't come to every damn town meeting and about everything. We
don't. We live our lives humbly. But when you poke us enough, we'll come here. And that's why I'm here tonight is because the Wine House is a good fit for Graanby. It's awesome. I visited maybe a hundred times now. I love it. It's great
for Graanby. If anybody says different, I'll buy him a damn mirror because that's what they need in regards to farming. Just like my brother said here, you better go after every single farm in town, every single farm in the state. If you want to go
down and get caught in the weeds over percentages, hops, merllo, penog grigio, whatever, get caught in the weeds, whatever. Back up though and look at the main focus is the state has a farm winery
license for a reason. You can go right on Masov and read it. why they did it. As with many other farm wineries in Massachusetts here, they're following the same exact rules. The Wine House is
doing nothing different. Now, you can go down the weeds and get caught up and rung around the axle and talk about percentages, hops, and this and that, but at the end of the day, good luck in court. None of it will hold up because you know what? I am a farmer. I'm a
farmer in this town. And you know what? If you come after the wine house, come after me, too. Because you know where my pot comes from. It comes from North Carolina. You know where my Pete Moss comes from? It comes from Canada. You know where my cutings come from? They come from Georgia.
Good luck. Every farm subsidizes in some way. >> Absolutely. Yeah. Not talking about marijuana. So, so at the end of the day, are we in wine country here? No, we're not. Absolutely. Are we in Napa Valley? No.
Absolutely not. Do you expect the wine house to subsidize with California grapes? Absolutely. Hell yes. There ain't a winery in Western Massachusetts that is going to do this on their own. And you can, you guys, I want you to back up. If you try getting
caught down the axle with some of this crap that's been been said tonight, it's is what it is. And at the end of the day, good luck in court. I thank you all and I know you'll make the right choice. >> Mr. chairman
couple final questions and all there were some things brought up and I don't know the um the attorney for what I understand any which the entertainment to me is is like background noise but that's been a big
thing there revenue I don't believe there's any ticket sales for any of those events everything's it's free I believe Okay. >> Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to respond. Um, yes. And it
doesn't show in the revenue data. >> That's what I thought. Okay. >> Because the the music combos that play or the special events that occur um and we we gave you a sampling of them from the last few months in our October 28th.
Those are not revenue generating for Winehouse. I mean, I think as some of the folks, you know, I'm a little jealous. I think they were more eloquent than I was about um what's at issue here. But those entertainment avenues are
really innovative ways to to bring folks together, get them in the door. And you see from the revenue sales, what is sold is the product that Winehouse produces. It's the wine. And I I just take issue
with the Richardson case where you had somebody who was uh you know extracting a lot of gravel and sand and selling that and that was the primary use. what we have here based on the revenue figures that we gave you. And we tried to be as transparent as possible and
delineating uh the specific percentages from the wine that was derived from grapes grown on the property and wine that was produced on site but from grapes that were offsite. Um overwhelmingly what is sold is the wine
produced by the by the wine house. >> Mr. chairman. That's my next question that all being done is there's 15 acres of the farm. 11 of it is he had heavy from what I understand. >> Right. >> Hey, how many acres are grapes?
>> I don't have that figure off the top of my head. Just around two. So, I I've been doing some research and 2 acres of grapes will produce between 6,200 bottles and 8,000 bottles
of wine per year. So, I just That's That's a lot of wine. >> Thank you. >> Yes, for certain. >> That's fine, sir. >> All right. Let's go back to someday.
>> Let's go back to the plan review portion of the application. I know that um your position or Mr. Trump's position primarily is that uh zoning doesn't
apply uh assuming that you are qualified for the pending. But I would beg to differ on that to a point because it doesn't say that specifically. It says special department, but really what it says is unreasonably regulated.
And in my view uh that the only method you can reasonably regulate is to follow whatever guidelines the planning board in this case would use to establish uh conditions for public safety and things like that. So my question to you
is this. Um are you still or is Mr. Trumpy still of the position that site plan review is not required at all or provided in any fashion. >> Mr. Mr. Chairman, I think you asked me that question directly towards the end
of the last hearing and uh at that time I had said in deference to you that we would not necessarily fight that um and that I don't disagree with you that a site plan review process
that is not a site plans uh review special permit process could be an adequate regulation that wouldn't necessarily in and of itself violate over. Um I I my understanding is that the
property has been it did receive its um certificate of compliance and it has gone through um in cooperation with the building inspector. Uh and from my understanding, it's a dialogue with the building inspector about what remained to be addressed, if there was anything
to be addressed with respect to the site plan review of the was for the installation of certain ballards in the in the parking lot for those protection purposes. Um the long-winded way of saying I I defer to you that yes, I think that
can be distinct. uh but also an acknowledgement that the wine house has been working through that process with the building commissioner. >> Thank you and I appreciate that and I appreciate Mr. Trump's cooperation with the building official to uh work through these various issues. Um my my my point
is simply this is that going through the site plan review process um if in fact because you haven't done it yet you don't know the conditions uh that might be uh asked of you but obviously your client still has reports because there.
If uh he believes that the requirements are excessive or something like that, his recourse is to come back to the zone board of appeals to to obey or change those those requirements. So, I would encourage you in cooperation with that.
Um the other question I have is the the question coming back to the elephant in the room. All right. regarding um the special permit 2010 upholding that
or or reversing that uh for the from the previous sign board of appeals. So my question I guess is this how how can you explain or how can you describe um
the difference between farm stand and let's say a nightclub or a restaurant or something like that because on the face of it when you walk in my understanding and I haven't been there and uh so I don't know firsthand
but I mean it's tables and chairs and uh they are serving uh alcohol which is permitted by by the licensing authority. So how do you compare that directly to a farm sandwich? I think general people would look at, you know, see bins of
vegetables and the check out of that. >> I mean, I again, I think I'd point you to the town of Nic versus Modern Continental Construction Company case, which did have a very robust star farm stand
operation that included um restaurant services as part of the operation. and the SJC in reviewing that was very comfortable in saying that all of that was um effectively part of the farm stand operation. Again from from my
perspective I think it is uh the matter of the point of sale of the agricultural good and although this setting is different from uh getting a you pick bushel basket to go out to the field or
perhaps as you're describing a more traditional farm stand where you walk up and you can see all the the produce laying out and you select it and and purchase it. I think that there have been many instances, modern continental construction being the most prominent one perhaps, where the the farm stand
operation is more robust than just, you know, grab a dozen eggs and leave five bucks in the barrel. I I think that there are all um versions of the same thing. And I don't again I I bristle at the
nightclub connotation in that the look at the revenue numbers. what is being sold is wine. And so the interaction with the customer is
selecting a wine and it's you know based on its agricultural um attributes and the like that that is why I think the tasting room moniker is much more accurate in terms of the the the interaction that is there and what
the customer is receiving is very directly the purchase of a good that has been produced uh on and by a farm And that's why I think the the description of that as a farm stand um is accurate. The produce that folks are acquiring or
purchasing when they go there is the wine produced by wine house on site. One of my concerns is this is that in our zoning bylaws and let's assume for the moment that we're not discussing any go the zoning by currently prohibit
expressly that restaurants bars about naturist district and my concern is simply this uh and I promise this will be the last one here and that is it looks if you watch my dog
is it really a chicken in disguise. >> Fair question, but again, I think the overall context of this operation is relevant and with the although I I agree with Mr. Mclofflin.
My recitation of the other licenses wasn't to say the existence of them necessarily trumps the zoning consideration, but I was pointing to them. one the entertainment license just to give this board comfort cuz we had talked about it before that there are
other avenues for regulating some of those aspects. But I do think that the emphasis on um this location being deemed by the licensing authorities as a farmer winery farmer winery is
significant. And so the the context that we're talking about is by its nature whether it quacks like a duck or walks like a chicken whatever yours was. I think you can't you can't conduct that analysis to
understand what the whole misison sense is of this operation without understanding it is the point of sale of wine produced by wine house on a farm that is under active cultivation and
that the primary purpose of the property is for agriculture. Even setting aside as your question framed whether or not Dover applies to that, I think you have to understand the
the dynamic of the location in that context. And again, some of the images that I was sharing before, yes, there's the serving area that's also outside. Um, when those folks are there, they're looking out over the fields, right? It's
all part of the same dynamic and what Wine House is offering and what some of the commenters have said is such a refreshing amenity that's being offered in the town. So could
you know I I had a a land court argument once where the judge said and if I was a Martian came down from my spaceship and I stood uh you know in this location what would I discern? I'll grant you to some extent if you stripped away all the
context. Would you stand in that room and say, "Oh, this is a a bar or restaurant." Perhaps you would come to that conclusion. But I think what is before the board is all of the context. And all of the context for this
operation is that it is located on a 17 acre farm, that it's has active cultivation, that it is producing the wines on site, and what it is vending, what it is selling is the produce of the wine that's there. That's all part of
it. And that is very distinct and distinctive from uh just a generic bar or nightclub. >> Thank you. Um, one last question I can think of and that is, um, when you're when you're having these events, um, you're conducting retail sales. In other
words, patrons are are purchasing bottles of wine at that point in time. >> Yes. >> Uh, does that can you give some perspective in terms of what other uh sales are being done? In other words, are you selling the wine wholesale to restaurants or other other places? So
yes, we included in our papers that um the operation does have a license to transport alcohol as well and there are uh some degree of the sales are not just at the wine house location itself. There are retail sales at we've mentioned uh
the farm stand associated with Barstow has some of the product there. So there are other points of sale. Does that answer your question concern? >> I'm just trying to get a perspective in terms of Is it 50/50? Is it mostly the outside?
>> I think for the the point of sale for most of the sales are at the wine house itself, but there are the the license also entitles them to sell a bottle bottle of wine that someone may then take back and enjoy at their house. It's not all not all the consumption
necessarily occurs there. But I think the the large proportion of the sales activity are associated with the location, but the bottles are for sale and folks can take that for private consumption just as you would say at a farm stand, grab those eggs and take
them home and use them. >> Uh do any members have any questions about sir? >> Thank you. Um, brother councel was talking about when you asked him about the the point of
sale actually selling the stuff on site. He talks about a case where the court allowed as under this farm stand like a restaurant on a particular uh I forget the name of the case but I read the case and I'm familiar with it. One of the points I want to make about
that case is that the percentage of food that was being sold at the restaurant, they looked the actual percentage that was grown on the property. They did look at that. They didn't just say, "Oh, you got a restaurant. You're fine. That's nice." You know, they looked at the
percentage here. You should look at the percentages of grapes that go into the wine. You can't just say, "I make the wine here." Um, now I I hear people saying, "Well, you know, the the farms break the law anyways." I mean, being
advised to break the law is really a complaint against the legislature, not against this board. This board has to obey the law. And if they don't have 25% of of grapes going into the wine, they're not in conformity with U 48
section 3. Um and the other thing about the case brother councel talked about that was from a 2 or 300 acre farm. The restaurant was smaller than the farm. You know even though uh you know this the situation is is different here we
really have this business being bigger than the farm and and and when I talked about using numbers dollar numbers it wasn't necessarily for these percentages of what is in or not in what's being sold. those things true. It can be by
volume or numbers. What I was talking about the Richardson case said look at dollars when you're trying to figure out what's this what this property really is. If he makes most of the dollars from the wine then it's basically a restaurant. If he makes most of the
dollars from his farm then it is a farm and and the and the wineries helping the farm. It can't be the other way around. Um, and I bring up an ice cream case that I cited in my brief and in my first letter was ice cream stand was had, you
know, uh, cows, but they didn't have enough. So, they were getting the milk from Connecticut. And the judge said, "Come back someday. You're going to lose now cuz you don't have the proper percentages, but come back someday when you have more cows, you know, and you and you're selling enough milk uh to
make your own ice cream." Um, we're just ignoring that, you know, seemingly, you know, at least that's what brother Council is asking us to do. And some of the people are saying, ignore the law. You shouldn't be ignoring the law. That's a the complaint is not against you. The complaint is against the legislature. Maybe the legislature
should change this statute or at least cut the first sentence into a few more sentences. You know, but really, I'd ask you to try to obey the law. Um, the percentage, this is not primarily agricultural. It isn't. When he says
produced on site, when he's confusing you produced on site, he means manufacturing wine. Produced on site is the small percentage of grapes that went into it and that's not enough to get the agriculture exemption. Thank you, sir.
>> I don't necessarily want to uh play ping pong here just quickly. I don't think anybody was asserting that what farms are doing is illegal. That was preposterous. I think the comments were saying that farms, not that they're doing something illegal, that they need to hustle, that
they need to maximize uh every opportunity and let nothing go to waste. That's much more a farming ethos. And in this context, again, I think it's important um attorney Costa has has framed this fairly well for you, but I think the
frontline question that you can contend with is, is this property primarily in agriculture? And that's why at the start of the comments today, I I did direct you to the images that we provided for the full span of the property. And
although I acknowledge it's a I think you've talked about being in gray areas and and attorney Costa has talked about this being an interesting case. Um the there's a very large amount of acreage 11 acres that are hay and as it
turns out there's not a sale associated with that. But I do think it's an important consideration in terms of where this board can land in terms of finding that frontline question of is this a property that is primarily engaged in agriculture. I think you need
to give serious consideration to the the overall nature of the uses of the property and that significant acreage of hay is a significant consideration. I just remind you of that. Thank you very much. >> Mr. Yes. Can we move to close the public
hearing deliberation or um I think we can do that. >> I will second that. >> Any further discussion on that motion? All right. This point we will close the public hearing and the board will begin
its deliberations. We need to be able to take a recess first. >> You we can take a recess. >> Mr. Can you entertain a vote on voice vote on that? >> Thanks. Thank you. >> All those in favor of >> I'm hoping to come down there a little
bit. [Applause] Oh, she isn't even for me. people like a little [Music]
is everyone back. All right, we will continue now with the uation of this hearing. Um, what I'd like to do before we get started is that we we uh
should outline the um procedure on how we're going to do this. And I think that we're going to do some preliminary findings first to set the ground rules and those preliminary
findings will be I'm sorry. >> Okay. Sorry. That's why I asked a question. Thanks Chris. [Music] maybe. Um we have just uh started the deliberation process and uh we are going
to do some preliminary findings uh so that we can set the groundwork and perhaps answer questions prior to our deliberations on the two questions. So the first uh preliminary finding I'd like to address is to address the
concern of the question of the notice called paper timely. The notice was received by the uh board of health clerk on June 20, 2025 initially um received and that's because the town clerk was
indeed on vacation until on the 7th of July and the um the packet was turned over to the town clerk on that should return and the
the final application was received on September December 23rd, 2025, which included the actual final application together with the fee for reimbursements and the the uh uh butterflies. In my view, as as attorney cops mentioned,
there's some case law regarding that and uh my suggestion to the board is that we deem that the notice has been appropriately filed. Are there any questions regarding that? Then the chair will entertain a motion
to uh determine that the notice is uh filed timely. Well, I guess I do have now a question, Mr. Chairman. Point of order. I mean, that's sounds like that was more of a legal question that I don't think we I
think for sake of argument, we just assumed was submitted properly. I don't think for all three of you, Mr. Chairman has the top of council that question whether we should take a formal vote on that. I mean I think it goes without saying
we're entertaining we we'd assume it we're saying it was submitted properly and that's something that somebody wants to challenge it down the road is I don't know. >> So I think that's correct that if you were to simply proceed to the merits of the case then it would be implied that
you found the application to be timely. Certainly um if there were to be ensuing litigation although a review of this board's decision would be what the courts call denovo in other words they look at the the facts a new as if this proceeding never occurred despite that
there would still be a record of this proceeding and so uh anybody who wished to inform him or herself would would review the record and would understand that there had been discussion about the jurisdictional issue. The flip side to that is that I don't see any harm in addressing it head on and it certainly isn't phrased at multiple meetings. And
so um if the board wants to make a clearer record, I mean what I would recommend at the conclusion of this process is um that you whether you want to defer this test to me or the chair or another member to be reviewed by me, you're going to have to craft a written decision. You can decide whether you
want to put yourself on the clock tonight by voting yay or nay on the ultimate questions before you and then you're on a 14-day clock for the decision or whether you want to seek further time from the applicant and uh schedule a further meeting to review the decision before you officially vote it.
But my recommendation would be minimally if this decision addressed the jurisdictional issue because it has been raised and has been discussed in multiple meetings. Whether you want to make a motion to that effect is up to >> So it's not there's no harm to do it. Okay. So I will make that that motion. >> Part of the explanation of doing this
that uh if there were something being contested uh in the future one way or the other >> is that uh the person uh reviewing this would understand our point of view that those questions were raised. >> Okay. With that being said, Mr. Ch, I'll make a motion that I feel this is the
appropriate >> retirement. Okay. Is there a second motion? >> I'll second that. Any further discussion hearing? do not. All those in favor, please say >> I. >> Okay. The second is a
determination on the so-called missing information. Um, and I think that uh offer some some great discussion regarding uh from both sides. Um but in effect that the notice
is notice of determination only a letter basically a memory of understanding. >> That was the first letter or the second >> no the second letter from Tom >> is the missing information. >> Right. Exactly.
So I will entertain a motion to deem that the the missing information letter socalled is notice of determination. I make a motion that the letter that building commission issued is not a
letter of determination but instead a letter of understanding >> understanding. Is there a second to that motion? Second, >> Mr. Chair, before you call the vote. So, I just want to be sure the board
understands um and frankly that I understand what it is that that's being moved. So, the missing information letter has been appealed to you effectively meaning that has been treated by the applicant as a an order of some sort, a violation notice, a
letter of determination or notice of determination as you've called it, cease and desist order, zoning interpretation. There are different different terminology used to describe it. Um, but it's been characterized by the applicant and thus appealed to you as a sort of appealable order issued under chapter 48
section 7, which is the provision of the state zoning act that gives building officials as the zoning enforcement officers the right to make these determinations and issues them in writing and they then become appealable. Um, if I understand your motion correctly to determine that this is not a notice of determination,
I think that tonight's proceeding stops there. I think if the answer is it's not a notice of determination, that means it's not properly before you. It wasn't properly appealed, we're done. There's no you you wouldn't get to the merits of the of the of the case that's before you because you will have determined that the appeal was not properly brought
before you because it was not an appealable letter. >> Yeah, Mr. Chair, that was not my intent. >> Okay. >> Okay. >> I guess I should ask a question. This this vote was the first vote. >> That's why that's my >> All right. that uh after that
clarification I still the motion hasn't been a second. >> Yeah. >> Um then all those in favor please say I. >> All those opposed n. Thank you. Uh the third item would be
the order from Inspector Damon Cody regarding uh his cease and desist order dated June 25th, 2024. Uh the question really remains is that it's my understanding or uh I've seen no
evidence that the the order has been rescended or modified since the issuance of the of the letter. Uh so that is uh the question is is it still valid and Mr. Mr. Chairman, for you, my interpretation of that is,
and I'll I'll yield to our our town council here, but if the building inspector did not send that second missing information letter, that basically restarted the clock or reopen the wound or whatever you want to
call it. Uh I think whether somebody that's what I believe happened. So I would say that that letter is that's my interpretation that letter from the from D and Cody was kind of like null and void because this was a new
letter that was reopening and we're asking questions cuz evidently the building inspector had some questions whether that was the actual assistance otherwise he wouldn't have sent out a lot of his own
was requested by Um, no, not entirely. Um, Mr. Cost, could you comment on that, please? >> Uh, sure. So, I I think that that is one possible perspective. Again, not nothing in this case is particularly black and white. So, I think one perspective would be that to use your your words, and I'm
not sure I could have said it any better, that by virtue of issuing the further letter, the Tom Quinnland's letter of uh May 31st, the missing information letter, that that effectively restarted the clock. That is one perspective. Um, I think that that perspective would be
supported by the fact that Mr. Quinnland's May 31st letter actually said, "If you disagree, you can appeal or or appeal to the zoning board of appeals directing him to do exactly or directing the applicant to do exactly what the applicant did." Um, uh, another perspective is the one I heard referenced over here, which is yes, but
he only issued that letter because he had apparently received a request for the letter. Um, and so it was really the applicant that was restarting the clock, which as I explained to you a bit earlier, is not really what should be permissible. Um there's a third view or or perspective I suppose on this and
it's what I had um said before which is okay it's not necessarily that that Mr. Cody's letter is has been rendered null void or has been superseded. You know that letter indicated that there was a business use in the premises and that that business use wasn't permitted and
immuted to cease and desist. It wasn't healed. Um and then a further letter issued that didn't say the exact same thing. And it didn't say this is a business use that has to cease to assist within a residential district. The second letter that issued, the one that Tom Quintland issued, the missing information letter, said a whole bunch
of other things, the need plane reviewed and said, "Take a look at this special permit from 2010. It says no business or industrial use in the in the shed." Um, and so that what was appealed and is is before you tonight. behind both of those letters or the defenses or the
prosecution of appeal of either of those letters is the same elephant in the room which is the agricultural use or not of the site in question. Um but they're two separate letters saying s two slightly different things. Uh and this one was appealed and the other one wasn't. So
what may be given to the nonappeal and the other one is sort of sort of up to you. uh even if you were to vote in favor of the proposed motion, I don't think anybody actually moved it, but I heard it. I heard the statement um that it hasn't been rescended, is it still valid and enforceable? I mean, even if
you vote yay on this motion, where does that leave you? Okay, so we have a valid and enforceable letter from back in 2024. But we have a new letter that says something that has now been appealed and is before you tonight. So, not not sure you necessarily have to address the letter from 2024, but if you
choose to address it, um you can address it in either of the three ways we just discussed. >> Okay, everyone clear on that? >> Bear in mind that really your question.
>> No, not really. >> Well, well, Mr. the chairman through you. I I think if the town is almost acquies or whatever the word is a fancy word, we wouldn't be here if the town felt that letter had weight. The first
letter had weight cuz they would have said time out is this is what we're going to do. We're going to go to land court or whatever. So, we're here. So, the town of Ramy's already made that decision then >> the applicant has the right to seek relief if they want to regard. No, we're
talking about the May 20 the May the the 2024 letter. That's correct. >> What I'm getting at if every anybody that within the 2024 letter was still valid or whatever and wasn't reset by the second subsequent letter, we wouldn't be here.
>> So that decision has already been made >> purpose of of this is not to have something hanging out. >> I I I see what you're doing, Stephen. I agree. That's where that's why I made a statement is in my mind the 2024 letter people want to argue one way or the other but that argument is mute because
>> we're here the new letter >> the the new letter >> right you want to say it's right or wrong or whatever the new letter was gone the application was accepted through here >> so Mr. Chair, can I make a can I can I suggest a motion that I think might be a
bit of a variation that might get you where you want to be. So So I think you and it get you where you want to be in the sense that I'm making the decision for you because this vote could go either way. But I think that what you could vote to do is or you could move you could you could move to
um refuse jurisdiction of this case that you just heard on the basis that the 2024 letter controls. And if you vote in favor of that motion, once again, we're done here because you're saying the 2024 letter controls, everything that happened after that shouldn't ever happen. We shouldn't even be here. And
if you vote no, then you're you're opting to proceed and to consider what we've been hearing over the course of the past few months. >> Thank you for that clarification because like I said, I don't want something hanging out there uh to come with the whole thing. So the uh I don't remember if the motion
was made so I will restate it. Um the chair will entertain a motion to determine that the order issued around 625204 is still valid and enforceable. >> I'm looking for somebody to make that motion.
>> And I and I think what I'm suggesting, Mr. chairman, is that that you you you scrap that motion and start, right? I think the challenge there is I don't know that you want to say it is or isn't enforceable because that's not really before you. I think the question is do you want to accept jurisdiction of this case which involves the May 31st, 2025
letter or do you want to refuse jurisdiction of this case because there's this other letter. >> So, so I think I think Mr. Mr. Chairman, I think my proposed motion would be that we accept jurisdiction based on the letter from the building inspector
Quinnland versus what? May 31st, 2025. Correct. >> All right. Is there a second second to that motion for a second? Uh, I'll second that. >> Just in time.
>> So, so this was a motion to accept jurisdiction. So, yeah, just to be very clear, a yes vote means we're now going to proceed to what we've been discussing tonight and 5 weeks ago about these other two questions that were presented in that missing information letter, the
agricultural exemption. A yes vote means we need to proceed. A no vote means we're done. the 2024 letter control, you're not proceeding any further on this 2025. >> So, if we approve and go forward that that indicates the May 31st letter
supersedes the one in 2025. >> Um, you're you're you're not quite making again because that's not the question before. You're trying to find a way where this board doesn't have to make that judgment call because you don't really need to make that judgment call. What you need to make a judgment call about is whether you're going to accept jurisdiction of this application
that's before you. Is that clarify? All right. I'm going to call for a vote that we accepted jurisdiction um based on the letter from Inspector. >> Yes.
>> Well, I already made the motion and probably a second. So, yes. Yes. >> Yes. >> Yes. Yes. >> Okay. And just ask unanimous. Okay.
And uh the final uh preliminary finding to consider is that the response to additional information requests regarding the revenue analysis is complete. In other words, the question was that it didn't specify dollar amounts but only
percentages. And the question that will resolve that is that we accept that the revenue analysis is complete. >> Wouldn't we have done that automatically clos analysis because I said we wouldn't close the public hearing if we didn't. I
make a motion to it. >> Is there a second? I'll second. >> Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say I. >> I. >> I. >> I. >> Thank you. All right. Now we get to the meat and potatoes of everything. Another
um we are going to uh turn this into two separate uh discussions and motions. and that is to determine whether or not to uh reverse the building inspector's um
determination of site plan review is required. And the second would be to uphold um either uphold or or get rid of the special permit requirements of 202010 for the uh business use and
industry. So I think that uh I think council has recommended to us that we approach the second question first uh regarding the um reversing the prior basically the prior
building excuse me the priority or appeals decision that no building um business use andor industry be conducted and that um by doing so automatically determined tasting room is
in fact in agricultural use. So let's start discussion on that. The special permit in 2010 uh was approved for a garage storage building seating,000 ft with the additional provision that uh
no service or industry is conducted there from where they're in. >> Right. and storage to me is on operational facility and I think storage is storage I'm not
getting into agriculture what we're going to use so Mr. Mr. Chairman 3 and that's the crux of the matter is you read I've done a lot of reading prior agriculture is the town devoted to you know
agriculture community agriculture is not defined yes it's a business but it's not defined as a business or industry so that's to me the question there's been a lot about the entertainment and all this stuff and it's just
whether I agree or disagree with that that really is not before the board that is a separate license from another board. And our question is like our our town council said there's really two questions is do we consider
this an agricultural operation? I think that's that's our first vote. And then if we consider this an agriculture operation that nullifies that 2010 letter because agriculture is not
considered a business you know yes it's a business you're making money but it's not considered the pure definition of business like an auto repair or a category right and it's not industry so that is really
which that's kind of been my thought is that's really the simple question and that's where we have to have discussion >> whether we agree with how and what is going on with the entertainment or we agree with you know taking a a car show
there or whatever that is a lot of background noise or whatever >> distractions >> yeah I I didn't hear one person say I hated looking at those brakes I didn't hear one person say that damn hay bor
makes a lot of noise you know so the pure facts are there's a 15 acre parcel if I heard everything correctly. 11 acres is hay. 2 acres is grapes. So out of 15 acres, 13 acres is farm related.
Nothing I've heard that says you have to run a I worked on a dairy farm for for 8 years. Trust me, it's hard making money on a farm. So many farms are not profitable. So I mean that's to me that's kind of like the the pure question is do we consider that
agricultural use? Everything else is is whether we agree or disagree. That's not our fight. That is the board that issued that entertainment license. That and maybe I'm looking at it too simple. That's the way I look at it. Is is is a
15 acre parcel that has 11 acres of hay, 2 acres of grain. Is that agricultural? >> Mr. German. I read I said it's a lot closer to being agricultural than a auto body business, you know, or something like that. It's
>> you're good at growing things. >> Yeah, I agree too. I think the go amendment is gives them >> it might may not fit everybody's idea of a farm, but commercial there. Would
you like to expand on your comments? >> No, I see both sides of it. Trust me, I get it. We're in a small farming community. Um, I just don't know where I get caught is the permit and what it states can can't be done within the building, but that ties
in and it grabs agriculture and then pulls it. Yeah, that that's the whether you agree or disagree with the like I said I mean there's no ticket sales but like I said whether you agree with that the music there or not it's to me it's that simple
of a question is that an agricultural use of the property you have any comments please [Music] >> I have my opinions but my opinions are my opinions I so I leave it up to you guys I would like to hear your opinion actually I thing goes a lot further than
what we're looking at. >> And unfortunately, we didn't we as a group, I wasn't here. We weren't here anymore. We didn't drop the ball. The ball was dropped many courts before us. And had it been done accordingly from the beginning, none of us would be
sitting in this room. And with that being said, I I don't think that this is the the end all do all. It's a band-aid because we have issues that are far greater, but the attorneys capture on them and and we
we have to move forward as we're being advised. >> This is correct. Yeah. >> And and what happened in the past is in the past and hopefully we learned a lot from it. Um, any other discussion regarding that question?
Your thoughts, Steve? Well, my thoughts are mixed quite frankly. Um, I have no issue with the operation of the winery on the on the property, packaging room, and things of that nature. My concern is simply the the uh tasting room. And my
concern is simply this is that I find I don't agree with the with council's interpretation that it's akin to a farm stand. I disagree. >> I think that was a bad analogy but that's okay. And so my other concern is
that because uh looking at it uh from as the alien coming down as one was was mentioned. Um looking at it, it looks like a bar in a in a restaurant that now I get that >> I thought you said you've never been in there.
>> I have. >> Okay. I haven't either. I I've never been there. So my understanding is the chair vendor is looking at the plans and you know department uh so I do have a concern in terms of how that's being presented. Uh I'm not
saying suggesting that um the actions that are occurring within the tasting room are not related to the wiring and eventually they are. And I also further believe that in terms of
the revenue numbers uh it's difficult uh as it was stated earlier uh through the testimony that it's going to take some time to build up that uh the number of product they're going to be able to generate those two acres of of uh vineyards. So I understand that this is
the basis of it and I don't think it's equitable uh to uh force the the uh owner of this property to say okay we're going to measure your standard by on day one of your great my view is not fair Mr. terms and that's
why I asked the question. I was astounded when I read that one acre. >> Well, well, it's on the internet. It's got to be true. But I I I did a couple different and they were all That's why I said between 6,000 and 8,000. I was getting different
answers. One place said 3,950 bottles. Another one said 3,120. The other one said like 3,220 whatever. But that's why >> I saw Trump because of the >> Okay. That's why I I I was astounded
when we saw that that that's you know >> 10 years. >> But when wouldn't those numbers be a mature line >> and that's what Stephen just said it's hard you know if if you leave somebody to that standard they'd never get to where they were at Minnesota anyway. But
so again, it gets back to what I said and I don't know if we've I almost be willing to make a motion that you know I feel what we've heard that 11 acres 2 acres on a 15 acre parcel is
agricultural that's an agricultural use and Mr. Chairman, I'll open a motion. >> If if in fact the board finds that this is an agriculture used property, just speaking out loud for the board
and we move forward. The operation in that building is not storage of farm equipment if it's retail. And >> we'll answer that question. Let me answer it in a specific way. The
application that was taken up to change in use was a building application under CMR 7.8 which is the building code and the change of use was to change it from use group as storage to A2 assembly. All
right. That has nothing to do with zoning whatsoever. All right. Now, the application originally came through as a change of use from this to farm stand. Well, there's no farm stand in the building and the application uh was um to my
understanding completed with the use of change from uh S storage to A2. So my my my comment and I understand what you're saying um that it's a different use under the zoning
bylaws. Okay, these zoning bylaws do have a use group S, but it's in different context whatsoever. It's uh not to be confused with um well, I shouldn't say that it is related
to not quite, but we have different use groups in the zoning bylaws than we do in the state building. So that application was granted because it it met the requirements of the building in terms of analysis was done by the engineers of the architects in
terms of being egress and things of that nature. So that's been all satisfied. Uh but tied to that as well is that there were actually multiple building permits. I'm not entirely sure how many there were two or perhaps even three because there were some exterior modifications
to that building and cleaning off and things of that nature. But again, I haven't seen that what has been done and the uh the question is and this is tied to the to the first part of the question in
terms of site plan review in our bylaws. So assuming that it's not protected on the door for a moment that any permanent range of furniture and modifications requires sight approval and I think that that could be where the
building official that this is but I also think that and I clarified that with my conversation with attorney during about um working with the governing authorities
whether it's department or the planning board to uh go through a site plan review process to satisfy at least the basic requirements and I think they were agreeable to them. Excuse me.
But um I'm not sure how to answer your question. >> I was referring to the 2010 special. >> Yes. And I know that is the real question is I understand it um that the um conditions that we have in our bias
regarding um Building services and industry are in some fashion clearly defined in other fashions they're not. Building services are only a few things mostly as I recall uh professional services. Uh and that's clearly not what
we're dealing with on on this. Uh the industry factor is um as some have suggested is that it may or may not be applicable to this based upon what what standard of measure you use. Again this this decision is not easy because it is
so uh it's muddy. It's quite frankly it's muddy in terms of what really applies and what doesn't apply here. Uh but the point is simply this is that if this this board does deem that the uh
tasting room is uh agricultural use then that kind of ends this whole situation. >> Is that correct? I thought we were determining the use of that. >> Right. So, so, so, and I was going to add on to the motion that was almost made, but not quite. The motion referred
to 11 of the 15 acres being hay, two of the 15 acres being used as the vineyard, 13 of 15 acres being dedicated to agriculture. I think that was the essence of your your statement before your motion. >> Correct. >> Uh, and you said it's this site is principally used for commercial agriculture. Okay. So, that's the site,
that's the property, right? We're talking about a 15 acre property, but ultimately what's really before you >> correct >> you have to address the issue of the site. >> Let me Mike when we started there was two questions. Yeah. >> So the first question is this agricultural? That's question one.
>> What's this? >> Is the is the parcel agricultural? That's question one. Question two is whether the tasting room is ancillary to agriculture. So that's why it's a separate boat. So I suspect that's why >> I suspected you may be getting there
because question two can actually be two things. It can be is it is it ancillary or even before we get to ancillary is it a part of the agricultural operation but I think we have to be correct to me and the chairman of thought that we're going to do two separate
>> and that's fair those are the first two motions first is the site used for the primary purpose of commercial agriculture. Second, is the tasting room either part of that operation or or accessory to it? Then to answer your question, if the answer to both of those is yes, well then the question of the
2010 special permit essentially becomes move because a 2010 special permit that says you can't use this property for business or industry. If it's agricultural business or agricultural industry, it it renders the restrictions in that permit in your bylaw move
because the doer amendment supersedes all of them. So that's the So you do have to answer those first questions, those first two questions first. And if the answer is yes and yes, then I think the next two questions about site plan review and about the 2010 special permit, I think you're answered fairly easily if the answer was yes to those
first two questions. But wouldn't if that was put if if that land was rendered to be an agricultural make the second question obsolete >> because what what they were saying was that building well only if it automatically calls I think they're separating the two out
because they're they're first determining whether the site as a whole is used for the primary purpose of commercial agriculture. You can say yes to that question and say yes but they've got this building that they're using as a nightclub. I know a phrase that has been disfavored but Nikon that is not that is in no way connected to the
agricultural use that comprises 70% of the parcel and then the answer to the question too would be no and then we have more difficult answers to these questions of site review of the 2010 special permit so I think you're correct let's address those first two agricultural issues as two votes correct and then we can move on to the other two
questions Mr. Chairman, my my vote is I I my opin my my motion is that this parcel is agricultural in nature. >> Is there a second to second? >> Any further discussion on the paring?
None. I'll call I'll vote. We roll call vote on this, please. Mr. Johnson, >> yes. >> Mr. >> Mr. Sh, >> yes. >> Mr. B, >> yes. >> And you can't vote. Sorry. Uh and the chair vote yes. So the vote is unanimous
by roll call. >> All right. The second part of that question now and I'm asking you Mr. Johnson to make that motion. You're doing such a great job. >> Yeah, sure. Well,
like I said, I'm I'm repeating myself, but there's just been a lot of noise here about everything that goes on in the parcel. And I did do a lot of reading with the the build amendment and the definition of
you know and I forget which council it was they tried to the winery is not considered manufacturing underneath the state law I you might be able to drag in the beer is
is so there's a separate distinction there. Uh but with that being said, that is when you look through um all everything I read is it's common to have a tasting room with the wine. Now the
question is is this an actual tasting room or is it more than a tasting room? I've never been there. >> Okay. >> So I I I don't know. I can't say I don't Is there a menu there that's where they have food and or is there there's food trucks. So it's not in the building.
>> Yeah. But is this from what I understand served in the heat and outside? >> Correct. But what I'm saying is it's not there's not a kitchen in there that creates food. So that's at least I believe so. I've never been there. So there's not a kitchen, you
know. Uh there's not a menu cuz it's a food truck. I don't think food trucks they have food trucks, >> right? You know, um >> there's a menu with wine or food on it from what I understand. >> I'm sorry, what? >> There's a menu with wine and probably
beer and prepared food and not making it helps. >> So, yeah. So, it's they buy the food of food truck and then the wine. >> So, that's it. See, to me, again, I really didn't hear
much debate about the there's it seemed to me the debate about the tasting room was more for ends end to the means of stopping the entertainment. Everything I heard was entertainment was the problem.
And that's not what's before this report. That is a function of the board to select and that issues have license. So that's that's not before us. I do have empathy for everything >> and they put restrictions on it. >> But that correct? That's what that that
you're correct. >> And so I do that and that's why I said it just it's difficult cuz everything I hear I've been involved in town politics for an even state for a long time. This is very very murky or or I shouldn't say
murky but it it just got con convoluted because of all the steps. the dober the dober that we're talking about that's been around since 1950 but that was only for schools and for uh nonprofits I
believe and churches and then they added agriculture back I think what 8 n years ago or something >> more than that >> more than that okay so this is still like almost like new territory and unfortunately a lot of this stuff is
above market scale is going to be decided in courts everything well we're not getting paid a lot of this is just going to be settled in the courts because it's it's new I mean so it it's to me whether the
like I said the ancillary stuff that goes on there is right or wrong that's the it's I I I have to kind of black that out in my head. So I mean I think every winery I've ever been to has a tasting
every every winer. So >> yeah that point say storage >> but but that's where it gets into agriculture is not does not fall underneath that business or industry
category. It really doesn't. So that's, you know, I I I you know, so I guess I I'm not quite sure what the motion should be, but my motion would be that seeing how this is an agricultural use,
my motion would be that the 2010 letter does not apply because it's agriculture. >> So, Mr. Chairman, we're not quite at the 200 that the 2010 per year. We're still at the first part of that two-part initial question of agricultural ease. So I think that's the appropriate motion.
>> So I missed the do I missed the beat here someplace? >> Yeah. The question is whether the use of the tasting room whatever that >> that's irrespective of the 2010 per whether the use of the tasting room is either part of the principal agricultural use itself. >> Yes.
>> Or is accessory to that use. That's the motion. It's either yes or no. Then we'll address the question. >> Yes. that so that's >> so to make this as clear as possible I would refer the motion in a positive way >> so right so
make a motion that the tasting room is ancillary to the agricultural use of the property >> that meet your criteria >> by ancillary you mean accessory right >> accessory yes >> yes it does
second I'll Second. I'll second it. It's already been done. >> Okay. Any further discussion on that motion? >> So, being accessory would be needed to assist the farm.
>> It's part of the agricultural commercial agricultural, right? >> It's part of the >> So, this this goes to um that passage I had read from the case law a couple weeks ago. Uh more than a couple weeks ago, five weeks ago. So the definition of accessory is customary and
incidental. And the courts have said those are sort of two separate tests built into one. Customary is the type of use and this is my paraphrasing but the type of use that typically goes along with the principal use. So for example, if this were a single family home, a customary use might be the use of a
swimming pool, right? That's a use that is customarily associated with single family homes. Lots of homes have swimming pools. And then is it incidental? And again, a swimming pool would be incidental because you're not spending 90% of your time in the swimming pool. You're using it occasionally. The primary use of the property is the single family residence
and you occasionally use your swimming pool. So, swimming pools are typical accessory uses cuz they're customary and they're incidental. It's a single family home. So, is this tasting room customary and incidental to the agricultural use that's occurring at the Adam? If I may,
could you suggest actually that that could be the second question? You could first just ask is the tasting room itself part of the agricultural >> and that wasn't the motion. So >> yeah. So I understand but I think this one's more detailed than >> Yeah. So I I didn't jump in cuz that wasn't the motion but the question as I
said before there were two motions you could have made. One is that the use of this tasting room is actually a part of the agricultural use part of the >> Well ancillary in my mind ancillary is part of the use. >> Well there's there's a legal distinction. >> Okay. That's why that's why attorney
journey is jumping in. I'm sure he well he wants you to find that it's part of because it probably makes his case. >> Yeah. So, but is the way I frame it, right? So, so you can you can either determine that this this tasting room is part of the overall operation. It would
be very black and white if you were informed that they were storing wine in the tasting room. They were processing the grapes in the tasting room. That would clearly be part of the overall operation. Now, I'm not saying that what they're doing there is still not part of the operation. I'm just saying it would be very black and white in that case. The suggestion here by Attorney Journey
was that you make that motion that the motion you made was that it was accessory. Either way, whether it's part of the overall operation or it's accessory, it still yields the protection of the do amendment, but it is a slightly different question. And I'm sure that again from an applicant's perspective, they'd love you to find
that it's part of the actual agricultural operation, giving it even greater protection than being something that is not particularly related, but related enough that it's accessory. So you can decide if you want to taste grapes.
>> I consider that being accessory. Yeah, I I think I'll I think I feel comfortable with the accessory for the motion for additional uh comment on discussion on that. I asked specifically the question you may remember whether or not
there's any manufacturing or creation process happening in the tasting room and the answer is no. So it's not used for correction. >> Are you satisfied with the incident? >> Do you have any comments?
Okay. All right. Then the motion made a second. Um, all those in favor? >> You got Is there a second? >> You did. >> Well, you didn't second the uh revised version. >> I'll second the revised motion. Okay.
Again, roll. >> Yes. Yes. >> Yes. Yes. Yes. Is there a second part of this? >> There's actually now what's actually before you, right?
So the questions that were before you are the two questions that were raised by left. Number one, and I'll just I'm just going to read it because again I don't want to try to paraphrase here. So I'm going to do it in reverse order because I had suggested that before. So the first one is a statement by Mr. Twinland that he found a special permit
issued for the garage storage building exceeding 1,00 square ft I think it means area. This was attached to the de stipulates no business or industry. Uh he says he was not able to find any appeal indicating a change of the restriction. So I think the implication there is he's saying
this restriction is binding. He doesn't say that those are my words but he says he hasn't found anything changing the restriction. Please provide it and if not appeal to the ZA. So I think the question for you is with this having now been determined to be an agricultural use of the premises and an accessory
agricultural use of the tasting room, do you affirm his determination that this 2010 special permit condition is binding? Or are you going to determine that it's not necessary to change the restriction because the agricultural exemption supersedes it? And legally
that would be my recommendation. Yeah. What is your recommendation as opposed to reform? >> My my recommendation is having what and again I'm not here to be factf finder but where you've now made a legal determination that the property is being used for agricultural primary agricultural purpose and that the access
the use of the J room as accessory. I will tell you as a matter of law that the do would supersede any restriction in a 2010 permit that says you can't use this building for business or interest. That's my legal opinion. >> Can you give us suggested language for that motion? >> I'll make a motion, Mr. chairman and I'll let him critique it.
I I make a motion that due to the fact of the last two votes, the 2010 letter stating business and industry does not apply as this is agricultural use. >> And my only tweet would be it's not a
letter, it's a special permit. >> Oh, I'm sorry. Special permit. >> Repeat that again, please. >> I had a hard time doing all once. No, that was a pass. >> Uh due to their past two votes, I make a motion that the 2010 special permit does
not apply where it states business or industry because agriculture is not underneath either one of those >> automatic >> because these are the ultimate questions before you. So you have to take a vote on the question that's before you because we need the decisions invoking
the 2010 essentially >> without actually revoking it because you that's not the question before you really it's not your authority but that's in effect what you're doing. That's correct. You're invoking a restriction of the 2010 special permit because o only with respect to the use being agricultural. You're determining
that the agricultural exemption state statute supersedes anything that the 2010 ZBA was able to do with respect to limited use of >> Mr. Chairman for you. We're not actually revoking that that that permit. It still applies if the property is subsequently
sold. We did the business or industry will not be allowed to go into that building. >> Well, that's correct. >> So, we're not we're not revoking the letter. We're just saying that letter does not apply >> to this >> to to this use. >> Right. So, the letter authorized the >> I just want to make sure that's not my
intent to Right. Okay. The special [Music] Are we there? Is there a second for the motion? We'll finish the first time. >> Yeah, I think we already second. >> All right. You going to want a roll call
vote? >> John said yes. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Yes. Chair. Yes. Unanimous. >> All right. >> One more. >> One more. So now we have to come back to the u set time review portion of the of
the thing. Correct. >> Correct. So so this one is a bit tricky and I haven't spoken on this yet but I will I will now. So um as the board probably knows site plan review is a tool that your planet uses. Most planning boards in Massachusetts use it
as a means to provide some oversight on projects and very often projects that are as bright projects. Uh if you're not sure if you want a particular use in in a certain location, you don't place it on cyclone review. You place it on a special permit. Special permit gives your board or your planning board the
discretion to say no. The rule of thumb with cyclone review is the cyclone review authority typically your planning board doesn't have the discretion to say no. It's not about yes or no. It's about how do we provide some oversight maybe some tweaks those projects to be sure that it meets our standards. So you look at things like site circulation and
lighting and adequacy of parking and you uh you might as a site plan review authority you might require uh dark sky compliant lighting or aroma of arborvite in a certain location to provide a screening things of that sort through the site plan review process when we turn to do amendment protective
uses like agriculture education and religion um generally speaking you can apply site plan review but it's kind of I we refer to it sure I refer you to Cyclone review light because it's sort of like an even lesser version of the already watered down cyclone review.
Cyclone review is already a sort of a non-discretionary process. But when it's a dominant protected use, you really can't say no because you determined that state statute exempts the use. But the case law still indicates that you can apply cycl review light to do amendment protected uses. So much so
that some communities have been bylaws have started adopting bylaw provisions called cycl review for do amendment protected uses. you don't have anything like that in your pile. The determination that's been made here by Mr. Quinland was that after reviewing the change of use, a site plan review is
required from the planning board. So, I think that you could go really one of three ways with this in terms of how you how you act on that determination and the appeal of that determination. You could say he was wrong. This use does not require any kind of site plan review. You could say he was right. this
use requires full site plan review which is a little bit contrary to what I just told you or you can go the middle route which is yes it requires site plan review recognizing that it would be site plan review for a do amendment protected use kind of that site plan review like that I was referring to that's kind of
the middle ground here that I think is available option to you um and normally I would be cautious about giving you that middle ground because you sort of have to vote yay or nay when a decision like this is presented to you but I have heard the applicant through council state on the record that they would not be vehemently opposed, my words not
theirs, to some form of site plan review. Um, I'm guessing by that item Peter can nod his head if I'm right, that he's he's envisioning what I'm talking about, which is sort of this site plan review light for a do amended protected use. Um, that would be administered by the time. So, uh, to
expand on that, my, uh, thought would be to phrase the motion in a, um, a positive view again, uh, to ask that the board reverse the building officials determination,
um, for site plan review. And the answer I would suggest that the board consider is no. that leaves the question open so that the applicant has to go to site review but it avoids the question of what detail or condition would apply to
that and as I stated in the public portion of the hearing is that if there are what the applicant may deem as u overextension or impossible or whatever the thing that they may disagree with that's an appealable event as well is
that a fair >> it is the only clarification I would offer that appeal is straight to court. >> Not to I think you you mentioned before that it would come back to the ZBA. It maybe it used to be that way under your bylaw. A lot of communities had structured it so that appeals of plenty
more decisions went to the ZBA. There's been a trend over the past 20 to 25 years away from that allowing for direct appeal of site plan decisions to the courts. And I checked your B after I heard you say that cuz I wasn't certain. And your bylaw says that appeals are courteable.
It is absolutely available. >> So that suggested motion would be to let me let me see if I can say it correctly so I don't have to put Mr. Johnson on the line again. Um uh the chair went in a motion uh to overrule the building
official uh the termination that site plan review is required. I think about it that's impossible. So we're over the decision on the village that is required in essence saying it's not required.
What the motion does say to overruct which would be he has a positive vote would be he doesn't negative he would guess on the planning board to take care of
the jurisdiction right you understand that >> well I I I understand the first part but there's I heard this is like >> Yeah. >> So if we null and void the building
inspector's letter that no site plan review >> then there's no site plan >> then there's no site plan review. So >> well that's what's up. All right. So that would be it. Why and as part of the additional discussion is I would request
to the board that I think that they ought to have some type of site plan review. Whatever detail would make them go in would make them do a site plan review. Yes. >> So so to add a point of clarification I think that the chairman has made the motion in the affirmative with the
intent of he himself voting no on that motion and maybe maybe enough members of the board board voting no on that motion. So you're not overturning the determination of the building inspector. Therefore, you're you're requiring a site plan review. But he's making a motion to
>> with the plan to do the right. We've already heard, Mr. Chairman, we've already heard that if a site plan review is invoked, it's going to have to be underneath what the Dover amendment is. >> So why don't we just There's been enough
convoluted on this. But we just, you know, I proposed to make a motion that we we site plan review underneath the do amendment. And now we're we're revoking the site plan review of do two votes.
revoke us and revoke the the letter or we do the first vote then we do we the site plan review utilizing the do amendment or the do whatever they call it which is allowed I believe and then
we revoked the letter I guess >> let me break that down into two things >> first the request from the applicant is a request over >> okay >> okay so that's why >> okay so I get Okay. So, yes. >> So, and
>> Okay. So, I make a motion that we um overrule the building inspector and site plan review is needed per the May 31st letter 2020. >> Is there a second to that motion? >> Yes. Second. >> Any further discussion?
>> So, just to be clear, a no vote would force the applicant to go through site plan review. A yes vote would not have You understand that? >> Yes. >> He's got it.
All right. So, the motion was to overrule building. >> Correct. Saying site plan is not needed. >> No, site plan is no sight. The letter said site plan was needed. >> Correct. So, if you overturn them, you're determining that site plan is not needed. >> It's not needed.
>> Correct. >> Correct. So, a yes vote means it's not needed. A no means it is. >> Correct. Correct. Okay. Yes. >> All right. Any other questions or comments? The yes is no. >> Yeah. >> A no keeps it on. >> A no keeps the requirement there.
>> So is this major majority? >> This is a this is a super majority. >> Yes. Yes. >> Roll call voting and Richard's not on the side. >> Okay. >> Yes.
>> Yes. >> Yes. No. >> We do this correctly because we want >> I heard yes. Yes. Yes. No. >> So it fails 32 because it fails to get the superiority.
>> All right. So conversely then, Mr. Chairman, can I make a motion that the >> I guess what would be the reason I'm not going through something you're >> No, you haven't motion. you're already
arguing against it. Uh I think my Mr. Chair, my motion would be to uh part of our order that site plan review is needed use utilizing the do um happening.
But again, we've done a lot of stuff to reinforce what should happen and what could have happened and there's been a lot of missteps and I think we just need to make it clear what our intent was. So my question to you is what what makes you there there's no specific
requirement in the do amendment for site plan review. >> Okay. >> Other than saying no. >> So so so our vote was is is is was a waste because underneath the dober the letter is null and void anyway.
Not exactly because we have two portions of the two questions. So, >> all right. Before before we go any further, I just want to make sure that we are in agreement in terms of what's going on here.
>> Go ahead, ma'am. So, so the motion that was just made was to overturn the building inspector's determination that site plan review is required. Correct. That motion failed, meaning that the building inspector's determination stands. So his statement was after reviewing the permit application, site
plan review by the planning board is still required. So that's where we stand after the motion has just been made. I think that your job is done because you've made your motions >> and so you've affirmed that determination. So now the applicant has two options. I mean certainly the the neighbors have options too. This is an
appealable event, but the applicant has two options. The applicant can appeal your determination and try and persuade the court that it's not required to go through site plan review or the applicant can make an application for site plan review and that application would not be administered by your board it would be administered by the planning board and to the extent the planning
board seeks my consult uh then I will provide the planning board with similar advice that I provided you and saying that with respect to their administration and the site review process they have to do so mindful that the underlying use is a isn't over amendment protected use and it has to be something That's more like site plan
light than more traditional site plan. Non-discretionary process that going to result in a grant of approval but maybe with some reasonable regulation as is permitted under the statute. That's on their boards. That's on their board. Correct.
>> Uh I think this has been difficult at best and board consideration. I also want to uh appreciate the comments made by all all people in the audience. They did a great job.
I appreciate what we've done here. >> Uh so, Mr. Chairman, you would typically uh have a 14-day public hearing prepared by written decision clerk's office. uh you will recall you uh report five weeks ago
at least through the end of this week. I think Friday um so I guess my question to you cutting out you are the clock. Um do you believe that you'll be able to draft or would you like me to draft the decision? work together on this. >> Okay. >> I know what you were typing furiously
there was trying to keep up with notes. >> So my second question is um particularly if we're going to work collaboratively to try to finalize this um 5 days is a 4 days is a quick quick turnaround to get that done. So I would suggest that you ask the applicant for uh a 14 14 days
from today extension which is only an extension of an additional nine days on Friday um to to be able to follow a decision with the test. that. Okay. >> All right. So, I presume that we'll have to send a letter to council tomorrow to
confirm it. >> An extension request that he can sign be filed with the town's office. Correct. And >> that's agreeable to >> Yes. Tomorrow's Veterans Day. >> Okay. That's fine. >> More reason for the extension. Correct. >> Is that it is
>> Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you very much, >> Mr. Motion. I Mr. There motion to adjourn and second.