(Newswire.net — July 25, 2018) — “They do want to help us,” Yetter says of town planners, echoing her business partners. “We’re optimistic.”
All in all, a lively alternative in a town without a whole lot of lively.
But then … Nope.
Abracadabra had planned to host the first of its Friday soirees on July 13, using the date to release its new Chill Brew, 12-ounce cans of Ethiopian coffee infused with hemp extract from the Luce Farm in Stockbridge. But hours before the event was to begin, it was cancelled — due to what the roasters’ Facebook page called “Woodstock’s no fun policy.”
Does such a policy exist? I stopped by to see Michael Brands, Woodstock’s town planner and a guy who has a picture of the Grinch on his desk and jokingly mugs like the Seussian spoilsport.
“Yes,” he deadpans. “Look at the demographics of the town and you’ll figure that out.”
Brands is kidding, of course. But seriously, he says, Abracadabra is ill-suited to hosting big gatherings in its current location — a rented first-floor space in a residential property located down a narrow driveway at village’s eastern entrance.
There’s no space for customers to park, no room for a sign that meets the town’s regulations and no clear authority to sell food from a truck in a town that doesn’t generally allow that sort of thing.
“It would be better for them if they were in a better location with proper access and proper parking,” he says. “It’s not ‘no fun’ — but we do have to comply with the rules and regulations.”
On Wednesday at 7:30, the Abracadabrians will make their case for an exception to those rules before the Village Development Review Board. The board’s five members, all citizen volunteers, have the final yay or nay on a business that wants to color outside the lines.
Clint Hunt is one of the three thirtysomething entrepreneurs behind Abracadabra. A coffee geek since his teens, he’s more comfortable talking about roasting profiles than he is navigating governmental shoals.
“There are these things that we’re dealing with that are ridiculous,” he concludes.