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 SUNDAY, MARCH 14, 2010 9:39 am |
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Local News 
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Everett rethinks boutique wineries EVERETT — Chris and Linnea Covington’s attempt to start a small winery out of their north Everett home last fall turned sour when neighbors complained.Everett officials cited the wine aficionados after trucks delivered pallets of wine grapes for a barefoot crush at the back of their Rucker Avenue home. Neighbors reported forklifts and the odor of grapes. The Covingtons’ winery is on hold while the couple waits for a city hearing in March. “It seems unfair to us,” Chris Covington said. “For a small business, times are tough. It was hard to get this going and we don’t have unlimited income.” A solution may not be far down the road for the Covingtons and other boutique vintners who’d like to set up shop in Everett. City officials are talking about how they might encourage wineries to set up tasting rooms and small retail spaces downtown. It’s part of a larger discussion about how Everett could be more flexible with the kinds of businesses it allows, especially in older buildings with basements and odd spaces that need tenants. At the moment, it’s legal for a winery to set up a retail space or tasting room downtown and store barrels of wine in the back, said Kevin Fagerstrom, Everett code enforcement director. What’s not legal is producing the wine on site, he said. The Covingtons briefly considered moving their winery to the back of their engineering business downtown on Rockefeller Avenue. They decided to withdraw their state liquor license application when they learned they still couldn’t produce wine at that location, Chris Covington said. The city is rethinking that, said Lanie McMullin, the city’s economic development director. Traditionally, wineries and breweries were large-scale operations more fit for industrial parts of town than a downtown filled with shops and restaurants. With boutique wineries popping up across the state, it makes sense to allow vintners to produce wine in small batches in the back of a building and sell the product out front — the same as bakeries and artisan chocolate shops, she said. “The face of ‘garage wines’ has changed,” she said. “People like and collect them.” What the city isn’t interested in doing is allowing production without a tasting room or shop, McMullin said. Downtown needs to remain inviting for shoppers. Building owners trying to find tenants first brought up the idea of changing city codes to allow more business types downtown, said Allan Giffen, Everett’s director of planning and community development. Everett’s many old buildings contain plenty of basements and off-alley spaces that might work just fine for a small industrial operation. City staff are just beginning now to make codes more flexible and any changes wouldn’t happen for at least six months, he said. Meanwhile, the Covingtons plan to dispute the violations the city cited them for in October. The Covingtons did make 14 barrels of red wine and two barrels of white wine from the grapes. It is still in the garage behind their house. It’s legal to run a winery in a residential neighborhood with a permit, but the home business must remain undetectable. The city cited them for violating five conditions of their permit, including storing equipment outside their home. Each violation could potentially be a $500 fine. The Covingtons said they might consider moving their winery someplace else. At least one neighboring city is all too happy to oblige. Debbie Emge, the economic development director of Snohomish, said she has invited the Covingtons to move the winery. Emge said boutique wineries and breweries are legal in downtown and Snohomish wants them. Debra Smith: 425-339-3197, dsmith@heraldnet.com. |
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COMMENTS
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Yes, by all means, lets run off the boutique wineries, we certainly wouldn't want to attract any culture to the region. I mean we all know what would happen... first it's a boutique winery, then a little bakery, next thing you know we'll have an art gallery... OH the horror of it all! Make it stop. Let's just continue with the way things are, maybe we can attract some more of those *****-able coffee stands.
H White | Feb 9, 2010 7:30 pm | 0 replies | Request removal
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Nice compliment, Bigboltz. As we all know, one should never cook with anything but one's best wine! Besides, all this not about the quality of the wine. And it's only peripherally about the Covingtons, though they truly are wonderful people. Unfortunately, they've unwittingly become the focus of the current controversy. The real issue is craft artisans and the wielding of the power of "NO" by local governmental bureaucrats. Everett is trying to reinvent itself, to cast aside the palor of decades of grime and smoke and the common image of the perenial blue-collar, beer-drinking, whiskey-swilling laborer whose broadest horizon is getting up in the dark of the next morn and slaving away for a pittance so he can do the whole sad ritual over again the next day. It's not that way! But that's the lingering image. Attendant to all this is a city bureaucracy that lives this image because that's what it knows. That's its potty training. The city is trying to change, but it's not doing it fast enough. First, it was Covington Cellars, now Port Gardner Bay Winery, that felt the weight of "NO." Then it was Furion Cellars from South Everett that saw the writing on the wall. Both of these fine wineries have bolted from Everett in the last couple of months, the latter to Snohomish where they waited with open arms, a properly zoned space, and a plan to make Snohomish the new Woodinville North. Lanie McMulln is trying hard to keep this from spreading, but things are happening too slowly in the halls of city government. I had thought of moving my boutique winery, Willis Hall, from Marysville to Everett to be part of a larger winery scene. But current abusive treatment of two of Everett's premier wineries has nipped that plan in the bud. I'll stay in Marysville, thank you, where I'm welcome and don't have bureaucratic rigamarole to fight. Good luck with your renewal, Everett. You need it!
John Bell | Feb 8, 2010 10:32 pm | 0 replies | Request removal
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Earlier Covington Crest produced small bottlings of different varieties and vintages as they develop. Some have been excellent; most have yet to be tasted. Port Gardener Winery now buys select grapes and uses the latest winemaking technology. I want to taste what's maturing in those oak barrels!
craig wood | Feb 8, 2010 8:16 pm | 0 replies | Request removal
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LOL! I was hoping for the whole LUCY RECARDO barefoot crush that day I visited their business in my neighborhood. What I wasn't expecting was a beautiful, State of the Art, Wine making business in their Garage. It was obvious there was alot of time and money invested there. I was sorry to see it shut down before it got going. One thing most people don't realize is that this isn't about making money to the Covingtons. It truely is a labor of love! It's about helping people! Ask Lannai and she'll tell you it's about raising money for scholarships,and polio research. The Covingtons are always helping people! Once again they are hosting the Night Out Against Crime in our neighborhood. This will make the 4th year in a row! I am glad the city is rethinking wine making businesses for Everett! We certainly don't want to lose great people/ and businesses to other cities!
Erin Pauley | Feb 8, 2010 10:35 am | 1 replies | Request removal
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I've tried the Covington's wine....I suppose it's OK for cooking.
bigboltz | Feb 08, 2010 6:44 pm | Request removal