General Assembly passes amendment to aid craft brewery
WOONSOCKET – Consultant- turned- brewmaster Sean Lopolito has had his troubles with red tape, but the General Assembly just untangled a little of it for him.
The Senate and the House have both passed an amendment to liquor control laws on behalf of Lopolito, clearing a major hurdle for his proposed taproom, Lop’s Brewing, at 122 North Main St. A new paragraph in the so-called “brewery bill” specifically exempts Lop’s Brewing from a prohibition on brewpubs within 200 feet of schools or churches.
A longtime Plainville, Mass., resident who recently moved to North Smithfield, Lopolito said the passage of the amendment lays the groundwork for him to apply for a state license to operate the business and begin acquiring beer-making equipment.
“The passage of the House and Senate bills are a requirement for me to move forward
with eventually submitting the application to the state,” Lopolito said via e-mail. “In more practical terms, Woonsocket zoning approval plus these bills provide the confidence for me to move forward with purchasing the largest capital expenditures, the brewhouse and fermenters.”
The next steps, he said, would be to obtain a federal brewer’s notice – which he’s already applied for – complete the build-out of the tasting room and brewery, and then apply for a state license to “manufacture” beer from the state Department of Business Regulation.
After searching for a location in nearby Massachusetts, Lopolito stumbled across 122 North Main St. last September when he was taking his son to an orientation session for new students at Mount St. Charles Academy. Lopolito plans to build the fermentation room in the basement and the taproom on the ground floor of the 118-year-old mixed used building, which has four above-ground levels. It’s located opposite Shaw’s Meats.
Property owners John Messier and Les Przybylko, the owners of the building, plan on renovating three stores above Lop’s Brewing as loft-style apartment units, according to Garrett Man-
cieri of Gateway Realty, the landlord’s leasing agent.
Mancieri said Lop’s needed a waiver from certain provisions of Section 3-7-19 of the Rhode Island General Laws because there are two churches within 200 feet of 122 North Main St. – St. Charles Barromeo Church and Harvest Community Church.
The waiver, he said, marks the 39th time the law has been amended to permit the operation of different types of liquor establishments near schools and churches in various cities and towns throughout the state.
Although both chambers of the General Assembly have both passed the Lop’s amendment, the legislative process isn’t quite complete, said Mancieri. Now the Senate and the House must both pass each other’s version of the amendment before the legislature’s work is considered finished.
“Since the wording of both amendments is exactly the same, that part of it is just a formality,” said Mancieri. “The biggest chunk of it is done.”
The House version of the measure was sponsored by State Reps. Michael Morin (D-Dist. 49), Stephen Casey (D-Dist. 50) and Robert Phillips (D-Dist. 51), while State Sen. Melissa Murray (D-Dist. 24), introduced the companion measure in the Senate.
“A small brewery is a perfect fit for the effort to revitalize downtown Woonsocket,’ Murray said. “This is an exciting opportunity for downtown Woonsocket, one that could help in the effort to bring in visitors and help develop the neighborhood and its atmosphere.”
Murray said Lops will complement the city’s collection of high-quality restaurants as well as the Stadium Theater, which is just a few hundred yards away from 122 North Main St. Lops would also be the city’s second craft brewery and will help make the Blackstone Valley “a destination” for connoisseurs of homegrown microbrews. Pawtucket already has a reputation for being the Southern New England capital of the craft brew boom, but the other small beermaker
in Woonsocket Murray was referring to is Dorian Rave’s Ravenous Brewing Company, 840 Social St.
The legislature’s approval of the Lop’s exemption comes after the City Council passed a resolution of support for the measure about two months ago.
Around the same time, the council also granted final approval to another measure designed to strip away a few of the regulatory hurdles Lop’s was facing at the local level. In mid-January, the panel unanimously passed a measure that added brew houses to the list of property uses allowed to operate in the “overlay district” without explicit permission from the Zoning Board of Review. The district stretches from Market Square to upper North Main Street, generally matching up with the city’s traditional downtown.
Lopolito and his wife, Sarah Barszcz Lopolito, are principals of Pinehurst Consulting Group LLC, a company that specializes in helping businesses manage large software installations and educational initiatives. But they’re charting a new career path as sole proprietors of Lop’s Brewing.
The winds of government regulation haven’t always been at their back. The partial shutdown of the federal government that began late last year, lasting 35 days, has probably pushed back Lopolito’s planned May opening back a bit.
The longest partial government shutdown in history took place while Lopolito’s application was pending before the Alcohol & Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, one of the agencies whose operations were affected. Lopolito was expecting the agency to get hit with a backlog of unprocessed applications when the freeze was lifted, possibly delaying the opening of Lops by several weeks.
Mancieri is optimistic that the business will open by mid-summer, however.
“Worst-case scenario I think it opens by June or July,” he said. “Hopefully, there won’t be any more government shutdowns.”