Persephone Brewing Company appeared to dodge a bullet last week when West Howe Sound director Ian Winn proposed a motion that could have slapped the operation with fines and penalties for not conforming to local bylaws.
Winn proposed a motion at the Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) Jan. 21 planning and development committee meeting that “actions be taken by the SCRD to enforce those rules, regulations and bylaws that have been broken or are in violation of compliance” by Persephone.
The issue came up due to complaints around noise related to amplified music on the site as well as Persephone’s non-conformity within the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR).
The property, located at 1053 Stewart Rd., was purchased in 2012, and at that time ALR regulations appeared to be going in the direction of allowing breweries to operate on ALR lands. The rules were changed in June 2015 to permit breweries, wineries, cideries and the like; however, the rules specified that breweries must grow at least 50 per cent of the products used to make their beer onsite. Persephone doesn’t have that capability.
The rules are different for cideries and wineries, which have an added “or” clause stating that products can be grown or purchased from another B.C. farm.
Persephone has been lobbying to have the or clause applied to breweries as well, with no luck to date. On Jan. 21, owner Brian Smith was at the SCRD to seek a “non-farm use application” to make an exception for Persephone within the ALR.
Winn said he felt Persephone wasn’t showing respect to the community or its laws.
“In this case this business has shown by way of its business practices that it doesn’t respect the laws nor does it respect the volunteers in our community who devote hundreds of hours in advisory committees such as the AAC, APC, OPC, NRAC … to work with local government to create those laws,” Winn said before he introduced his motion to take bylaw action against Persephone.
While support for Winn’s motion was mixed, with some like Gibsons director Silas White adamantly against it, and others, like Sechelt director Alice Lutes, keenly supportive, the motion ended up being deferred after hours of debate.
Instead, Winn moved that prior to making a decision on Persephone’s application for a non-farm use designation, a public information meeting be held to “inform the public of the details and complexity of the application” and that the meeting happen within 60 days of the Jan. 21 planning committee.
All were in favour.
Winn said the public consultation was necessary because he was uncertain what the will of the community was in relation to Persephone and because allowing a non-conforming farm use could be “precedent setting.”
The SCRD is charged with making recommendations to the Agricultural Land Commission (ALC) regarding Persephone’s non-farm use application, but the final decision rests with the ALC. A date has yet to be set for the public consultation meeting.
