Steel & Oak Brewing will soon be serving its award-winning brews to more craft beer enthusiasts.
New Westminster city council recently considered a zoning amendment that would allow Steel & Oak to expand the seating in its lounge from 30 to 50 people.
James Garbutt, co-owner of Steel & Oak, said the 20-seat increase would allow the brewery to accommodate more occupants, including folks who like to bring their kids to the brewery, and employees.
“For us, having 20 more people will allow us to hire four more craft beer enthusiast employees,” he said. “It will allow us to have more room for community events. It will allow us to have better food programming, which we’d like to have. … It will allow us to compete with some of our craft brewery counterparts that have upwards of 230 people occupancy. The additional revenue that we will gain from it will be reinvested in the business. We plan to buy more equipment and continue to grow, and we hope you support it.”
After approving the zoning amendment for 1319 Third Ave., city council passed a resolution in support of the increased seating, which will be forwarded to the Liquor Control and Licensing Branch.
When originally discussing the application, Coun. Bill Harper suggested the city may need an overall policy around brew pubs.
“These things are getting more popular, getting bigger. My understanding is there are some people interested in moving into the city and creating brew pubs,” he said. “The real question is whether or not we should have a policy around it.”
Harper suggested it may be useful for the city to have a discussion about the kind of brew pubs it would like to see in the city and what restrictions should be in place, particularly when they’re located near residential areas.
Jackie Teed, the city’s acting director of development services, said it’s part of the planning division’s mid- to long-term work plan to develop a policy about brew pubs.
“Currently we have had some preliminary inquiries regarding small-scale breweries in other commercial areas, but we haven’t had an application go through yet,” she said. “While at this time this application is specifically being prompted as the result of a specific business asking to expand, in the future we will be looking at a policy that looked broader.”
Teed said small cottage breweries are currently only permitted in industrial areas in New West, but the review would consider whether they should be permitted in commercial areas.
Coun. Mary Trentadue believes the city needs to explore how to streamline its processes so local businesses like Steel & Oak don’t have to go through such a lengthy and onerous process to get a small increase in seating in its lounge.
