The public turned out in a big way to support a young local couple whose winery’s tasting room was shut down by Southold Town code enforcement last month.
A zoning board of appeals hearing was held today at Town Hall. After a Facebook shout out for support for Regan and Carey Meador, owners of Southold Farm + Cellar, friends, neighbors, and even some who had never met the couple showed up in support of keeping farming alive.
Last month, the Meadors had their tasting room shut down: According to Southold’s Chief Building Inspector Mike Verity, code enforcement was sent out per his directon to Southold Farm & Cellar, a winery located at 860 Old North Road in Southold that he said has been the subject of multiple complaints.
Verity said as per normal procedure, the town asked for voluntary compliance. The business, he said, has only a certificate of occupancy for a single family dwelling. A winery and tasting room has been operating on the property since last year.
The matter was on the agenda at last month’s Southold zoning board of appeals meeting and adjourned; the Meadors received a notice of disapproval for a building permit for construction of an agricultural production building at less than the code minimum required setback of 100 feet from a major road.
The Meadors are seeking variances for conversion of an existing building to a tasting room and construction of a new winery building at less than the code required minimum of 100 feet from a major road and a winery building located on a parcel less than the code required minimum of 10 acres. Also, the winery/tasting room constitutes more than one principal use; the winery building at less than the code required minimum rear year setback of 60 feet and the tasting room at less than the code required minimum rear yard setback of 60 feet, according to the ZBA.
At today’s hearing, attorney Pat Moore, representing the Meadors, spoke about the business, a “boutique, handcrafted” winery, where the couple grows their own grapes. “They’re the newest generation of wine producers,” she said.
The site, she said, qualifies for area variances because “it’s not a typical winery.” Wine tasting, she said, is a supported mechanism in the town code, so individuals can taste the agricultural product, much as they watermelon or any other crop.
The Meadors are seeking area variances to construct a processing facility, and to keep the 400 square foot tasting room where it is currently is sited.
ZBA chair Leslie Weisman said as it stands, tasting rooms are only allowed as an accessory to a winery or in a commercial zoning district. Moore said the definition of “winery” was important.
ZBA member Kenneth Schneider asked if the address on the farm winery license was the Meadors’ residence, they said it was. He said he thought the business was “great, it’s just where you want to do it. You are running a winery on your property illegally,” he said.
Moore once again said the definition of “winery” was critical and said that according to the state definition, it was. Schneider said state definition or not, the use was not allowed under town code.
Over the years, Moore said, across the country, farmers have grown up on family homesteads and lived on the land, selling their crops.
Schneider said this “is different,” because alcohol was sold.
“I respectfully disagree,” Meador said, noting that across the world, notions of tasting rooms are quite different than in the United States. In France, for example, he said, most wineries do not have tasting rooms. “The notion o tasting rooms is very, very new,” he said, and the “cavalcade of tasting rooms and grandiose tasting rooms” seen on the North Fork are “a fairly new endeavor.”
While he said those businesses can be fairly lucrative he did not feel it necessary to have a winery at that scale.
“We’re now getting to the point where wine stands on its own. We don’t have to entertain people for them to buy or consume our wine. I want to be part of that change,” Meador said. He added that the small scale gives him the ability to have control over small lot production.
Just back from a business trip to California, Meador said the goal “is very much about getting wines past our borders and not having it consumed on our property. This just gives us the ability to support our family so my wife doesn’t have to commute into the city, and so that we can make this a sustainable business for us.”
Weisman said respected and appreciate what the Meadors are trying to do. “We are neighbors; we know we are living in an agricultural area and we’re lucky to do so. It’s worth fighting to preserve. There’s no one here that would not support what you want to do. But what we need to look at is whether this one acre of property can actually support those activities.”
When asked by the planning board how his tasting room fits into his business model, Meador said, “I look at it as a bridge.” Typically, visitors take a “I’ll believe it when I taste it” approach, he said. “We still have a lot of proving that we’re doing, especially someone like us, who has taken a different approach.”
In places such as Napa, he added, customers buy a bottle without tasting simply because of the region’s cachet.
Other vineyards are closing their tasting rooms to the public, Meador said. “That is something we idolize; that’s the way we’d like it to grow. I don’t want to have the heavy traffic and live music.” Down the road, he’d like to see demand created and wine sold on the website. He added that limos and buses were not in his business model.
Moore discussed the issue of merging the Meadors’ two properties and said she’d prefer not to do that so that in the future, if the children wanted to sell the house, they could do so separate from the vines. But she said if the ZBA insisted the merger was necessary, she’d like a covenant that should the winery ever cease to exist, the house and vines could be sold separately.
Also, Moore said, to be literate, she would submit that Old North Road is not a major road, and therefore not the 100 foot setback would not apply.
She pointed to other wineries in town that might not have approvals.
“We are not able to compare those operations that are not legal with an effort to create a legal situation,” Weisman said. “We cannot use as a precedent something that was not legally established.”
She added that she’d like “to get away from” discussing the couple that owns the property “and talk about the property. That’s what this board is about.”
Meador explained the new processing facility would be used in making wine, which is created in one-ton bins. “When you are making 14 tons, that takes up a lot of space. We’ve been borrowing space from a local winery” but need their own space, he said.
He said no more than 10 or 15 people can fit in his tasting room at once and there are no special events open to the public; one event held in the past was a private dinner for 20.
“We want to have people who know about wines find us, rather than have a big net pulling them in,” Meador said.
Weisman asked about a satellite tasting room. Meador said while a great idea, they cannot afford that option.
Next, supporters stood up to sing the Meadors’ praises. One neighbor said she has biked that road for 20 years and has seen a derelict building transformed into a nice home due to their efforts. She said the winery has not added to a traffic and there has been no adverse impact whatsoever.
Carol Haman, who lives next door, agreed. “My backyard is a few feet away and I have never heard any noise at all. They’re an improvement to the community and definitely to the Old North Road.”
Weisman asked how she’d feel once a 3,600 foot square foot additional building was erected; Haman said it would depend upon where it was built.
Dennis Lane of Cutchogue agreed the 100 foot setback only makes sense on a major roadway.
Connor Harrigan said, after working in tasting rooms for years, the Meadors would not want limos. “Selling wine to a group that large is actually quite difficult and contradictory to what he’s trying to do,” he said. “It’s acutally against Mr. Meador’s goals and objectives to engage in that kind of operation when the type of peope he’s trying to sell wine to believe that someone engaged in selling to those coming in limos and buses is not what they want to buy. He’s not looking to sell $8 wine on supermarket shelf, he’s looking for an elevated experience.”
Weisman said the only way the self-chosen limits can be insured into the future is if safeguards are put into place. “This has nothing to do with the applicant but what this property can withstand,” she said. “I want to protect you, as neighbors. If these very nice people move on, you want to be sure the next person doesn’t do something egregious. These are very substantial variances before us.”
The town board writes code, Weisman reminded, not the ZBA. She said she’d like input from the land preservation committee, as well as the planning board.
Chris Baiz, Southold resident and chair of the town’s agricultural advisory committee said he applauded the Meadors’ small footprint and said under ag and markets law their tasting room is “simply a farmstand. Southold Town is still trying to catch up to that in code.”
He said in order to keep farming alive, value-added products are needed, and said with first generation winery owners passing on, there’s a concern as new buyers haven’t stepped up.
The meeting was adjourned until August.
The Meadors turned to social media last month to reach out to the public. “We are closed, but not finished,” they wrote in a post on the business’ Facebook page.
The Meadors said in July, they had been told to “cease all operations or face fines and/or jail time. We are heartbroken, to say the least.”
They asked those wishing to help to continue buying and drinking their wine by purchasing it on their website.
The couple, along with their children Coralai and Sawyer, signed the letter with “peace and love.”
The public appeal has generated a large number of responses and offers of help from those who say they support the couple and the business as it exists.
