Rowley Planning Board Clears Nano Brewery for Site Plan Review After Jurisdiction Debate

ROWLEY -- July 17, 2021, Rowley Planning Board unanimously cleared a nano brewery to proceed through site plan review at its first in-person meeting since the pandemic. The board voted 4-0 to classify Anonymous Brewing Company's proposed tasting room at 60 Main Street as a consumer services establishment under the town's zoning bylaw, resolving a jurisdictional dispute over whether the small-scale brewery, featuring three brewing vessels in a nine-by-eleven-foot room and seating for roughly 30 patrons, qualified instead as a manufacturing use requiring a Zoning Board of Appeals special permit. Applicant Ken Willissey told the board that less than 10 percent of production would occur on site, with the bulk of brewing taking place off site at a licensed facility, saying the tap room "is going to behave almost like a restaurant without the food." The board also denied an application by John and Lauren DeLuise for an oversized accessory garage at 11 Rivers Edge Drive after the applicants failed to appear or submit a revised, smaller proposal, and continued site plan review for landscape contractor Elmer Valencia to August 11.