USA, NJ: The Riverton Borough Council votes to adopt ordinance allowing ‘limited brewery’ n the county

The Riverton borough has opened its doors to potentially be the next home of a craft microbrewery in the county, the Burlington County Times reported on December 27.

The Borough Council voted unanimously at a special meeting on December 27 to adopt an ordinance allowing a “limited brewery” in either the neighborhood business or general business zone. The municipality is one of the last dry towns in Burlington County.

“This is what we’ve been talking about now for a couple of months,” Mayor Suzanne Cairns Wells said. “We added general business district to this ordinance at our last meeting because that was a recommendation of the Planning Board, and we all concurred that that was a good thing.”

The neighborhood business district includes Broad Street from the Palmyra border to just past Main Street and a few streets near Broad and Main. The general business district is near the Cinnaminson border in the area around and including the CVS pharmacy, Cairns Wells said.

Any potential brewery would not be allowed to serve food or “operate a restaurant,” according to the ordinance.

Resident Ray Reis praised the council for its decision.

“I think it’s a good thing for the town, for one, and I think the open-mindedness of Borough Council to even consider this is an excellent thing for the town. ... I believe it’s going to make a difference,” Reis said. “It’s all good.”

The microbrewery industry has been growing in New Jersey and Burlington County since 2012, when the New Jersey Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control, the agency that regulates the production and sale of alcohol, loosened its rules. The change allowed for breweries to sell their products directly to customers and serve brewed beer on-site in a tasting room.

Since then, at least 59 craft breweries have opened in the state. In the county, eight have opened in the past five years, including two this past fall: Common Sense in Bordentown City and Zed’s Beer in Evesham.

The changes to the local code were thought to “be beneficial to the entire community,” an explanatory statement from the borough said.

During the Planning Board’s discussion of the issue in November, the borough solicitor emphasized that the ordinance did not specifically grant a liquor license to any business, but only allowed a brewery as a potential use in the business district.

28 December, 2017