After approving a new law in September to allow brew pubs to exist in the village of Manlius, the village board last week unanimously voted to approve the application of the Menikheim family to create a brew pub at 315 East Seneca St.
The brew pub, which has been under discussion by the village board since September, will actually be only one piece of a larger business plan to include two farms to grow hops and barley in the town of Manlius, create a brewery at one of the farms and open the brew pub.
“I think it will be a positive venture for the community,” Mayor Paul Whorrall has previously said. “The community is looking for newer, interesting and exciting places to go to eat or shop.”
The board had to create and write a new local law allowing brew pubs to exist under a special use permit in the village last September, because the town code did not allow for such a business to exist. After that law was unanimously approved by the board at its Sept. 23 meeting, the Menikheim family applied for a special use permit for their proposed business.
The board held a public hearing on the Menikheim application at its Nov. 25 meeting, during which only one person spoke. Rev. John Buskey, a baptist pastor, said he had a “strong conviction” that a building once used as a church should not be used “for this type of facility.”
Trustee Harold Hopkinson said he agreed with Buskey and understood his objection, but “we need to utilize that property. If we don’t do it in the village it will be moved someplace else.”
With no further comments from the public or the board, the public hearing was closed and the board voted unanimously to approve the project.
The board also held a public hearing on proposed local law no. 10 to reduce the number of village trustees from six to four.
Mayor Paul Whorrall said Manlius is the only municipality within Onondaga County as well as the five surrounding counties that has more than four members on its board. The purpose of the proposed law was to “come in sync with the other boards in the county,” he said.
No members of the public spoke during the public hearing, and no board members spoke afterward. The law was then approved by a vote of 4-1, with Hopkinson voting no.
Also at the meeting, the board:
—Appointed MRB Group as the village engineer on a trial basis until the board’s annual reorgnizational meeting in April.
—Scheduled a public hearing for 7 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 9, to discuss a proposed local law that would permit residential dwellings in a commercial district. Trustee Nancy Pfeiffer said it was recently discovered that the village does not have anything in its zoning laws to allow such residences. The village needs a local law “to allow what we already have to exist and to allow for new ones.”
Jason Emerson is editor of the Eagle Bulletin. He can be reached [email protected].
