Brew pubs could be serving up suds and other alcoholic beverages in Delta.
Council on Monday will decide whether to grant tentative approval of a bylaw change to allow the establishments in more areas. If given the go-ahead, a public hearing would be held.
Brew pubs in Delta are currently only permitted in certain zones.
A brew pub is different from a restaurant or a liquor primary establishment, such as a pub, because brew establishments also make beer on-site.
A staff report notes that after a review of appropriate locations it’s recommended to permit the businesses in the Mixed Use Ladner Waterfront Zone and at the market square in the Southlands Village development.
As far as the allowable size, staff recommend council adopt a maximum manufacturing floor area cap of 2,691 square feet, similarly to what’s allowed in the cities of Victoria and Prince George.
The floor area cap would include the areas used for manufacturing, warehousing and storage. Alcohol manufacturing facilities of a larger scale would continue to be allowed in industrial areas or where permitted under a site specific zone.
And since the cities of Coquitlam, Kelowna, Maple Ridge, Prince George and Victoria have also allowed the manufacturing of other types of alcohol in commercial areas under the same regulations for beer manufacturing, Delta staff recommend that the definition of brew pub be expanded to include all forms of alcohol.
Adopting that change would allow for a cidery or distillery to establish a commercial scale operation similar to a brew pub producing beer without the need for a rezoning.
Certain neighbourhoods in Boundary Bay and near the Ladner waterfront would be notified of the public hearing.
Earlier this year council voted 4-3 to reject the Four Winds application. The Delta brewery had applied to have a craft brewery and 200-seat restaurant in the commercial component of the Southlands.
The proposal would have seen the brewery and eatery housed in a roughly 30,000-square-foot building that would have been up to 51 feet in height.
It would have contained the brewing and bottling components of the operation, while the warehousing and distribution would be handled at an industrial location elsewhere.
A distillery and winery would have been in two other smaller buildings, although Adam Mills, sales and marketing director at Four Winds, noted following a public hearing those components were added by Century Group and Four Winds had no intention of incorporating them into its project.
