A local craft brewery is getting an unfortunate taste of what provincial red tape can be like.
Forked River Brewery has spent thousands of dollars to build a new retail outlet on the same property where it currently brews and sells its beer.
But, the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario has slammed the brakes on its plans, because provincial regulations state that a beer retail outlet must be connected to the brewery.
Forked River's new outlet is a few units down from the brewery in a light industrial park on Pacific Court.
"We currently operate out of a 3,000 sq ft space and all we're looking to do is to relocate our retail store to the other side of the building," says co-owner Steven Nazarian. "Under the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario guidelines, they state that as long as it's in the same parcel of land as your manufacturing space the retail space can be there."
Forked River contacted the AGCO and told them their plans to build a new store.
"They told us their (AGCO) information was online and to follow the regulations and they would do an inspection after an application was submitted, so we looked at the regulations and we went ahead as planned," says Nazarian.
Once the Alcohol and Gaming Commission returned to inspect the new space, it determined the retail locations was "off-site," even though it is on the same parcel of land, because it wasn't directly attached to the brewery.
It appears Forked River is the victim of a double-standard. Nazarian says, until last year, the Labatt store on Horton St. was not attached to the manufacturing space. It became attached when an additional cold room was built.
"All we really want is to be treated equally and for all the rules to be applied reasonably," says Nazarian. "If regulations are written down we would hope a governing body like the AGCO would apply their rulings based on what's written."
An online petition was started to appeal to the provincial government.
"We've gotten tweets and e-mails from all over the province, from breweries , from beer bloggers, from politicians. It's amazing the amount of support we've received."
The petition can be found here.
**This story was written by Alec Ross, a student in the Broadcast Journalism program at Fanshawe College. Alec is currently performing an internship with BlackburnNews.com