The national craft beer intelligentsia has fallen hard for Cigar City Brewing. This summer Entrepreneur magazine named the brewery the #1 hottest startup in the U.S., and its home off Spruce Street near Dale Mabry is becoming a new destination point for Tampa, as essential a stop for some out-of-towners as Bern's or Busch Gardens.
Matt Houlahan, a bartender who blogs about beer in Waterloo, Ontario, visited while enjoying his honeymoon in Tampa this past summer. He's a huge fan of the work of Cigar City owner Joey Redner and head brewer Wayne Wambles. But he wouldn't have come by in person if there weren't a tasting room next door.
"Because if I can't taste it, if I can't chat up the brewers or the bartenders or anything like that, it's not worth it."
But on Dec. 2, when Redner goes before Tampa City Council a second time to ask that his conditional permit to sell beer be extended to a permanent license, Council may well vote to shut the Cigar City Tasting Room down.
Why? Who would want to see this local success story stifled?
You have to ask the neighbors.
Opposition by the Lincoln Gardens/Carver City Neighborhood Association began when Tampa native Redner (adopted son and namesake of adult club entrepreneur Joe Redner) first came before City Council in 2008. The brewery had already begun production in a building legally zoned for manufacture and distribution, but Redner wanted to give tours and tastings to customers, and requested that for four Friday nights a month, he be allowed to serve and sell beer on the premises. The council agreed for a year to give him a conditional license to do so.
But as the brewery slowly grew in popularity, Redner asked for another conditional permit, as well as an expansion in the tasting room's hours, in 2009. Despite local opposition, both requests were granted. That prompted the neighborhood association to sue City Council in January, claiming that the permit was a violation of city rules that bar wet zoning so close to a residential neighborhood.
In early November, Redner asked City Council to make the tasting room's temporary zoning permanent and extend its weekend operating hours to midnight (it currently closes down at 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday nights). The council deadlocked at 3-3, with Councilman Charlie Miranda absent, setting up next week's critical vote. If the permitting is not approved, the tasting room will have to shut down by Dec. 16.
The craft beer community spread the alarm. Local aficionado Tim Heberlein posted a letter on Facebook encouraging local citizens to target Tampa City Council. A member of Hillsborough Young Democrats who's made beer-tasting trips to San Francisco, Pittsburgh and Colorado, he says Tampa residents don't realize what Cigar City is doing for the city's reputation. "I think it adds a little bit of culture to something that is maybe a little underappreciated."
But opponents are ratcheting up their campaign. Last month the neighborhood association submitted a letter to the council attesting to "increasing traffic and crime based upon the neighborhood observation of the activity at the establishment."
The Tampa Police Department says that there has been virtually no reporting of incidents in the area. A list of calls for service provided to CL by TPD shows mostly burglary alarm calls to the establishment.
But opponents say the lack of a paper trail doesn't mean the neighborhood hasn't been deleteriously affected.
Tampa City Council Chair Thomas Scott has voted against Cigar City Store Brewing each time it has come before the Council and intends to do so next month as well.
He believes there are crimes being committed that aren't being reported, saying, "I met with the neighborhood last week. A lady said she's never called the police because it always has taken a long time to come out and there's been vandalism going on, people have thrown rocks at her house, but she never calls because it takes so long for them to come."
Such a comment infuriates Joey Redner, who says Scott simply isn't telling the truth. "We haven't had an incident that would make you want to call the police. We police our own property."
But City Councilman Curtis Stokes tells CL that it's not surprising that the mostly black community in question doesn't report criminal activity. "You have to remember this is the same community where a gentleman was killed in his front yard and the police still haven't found him… There's a culture of not calling the police, especially when crime happens."
Joey Redner questions how people in the neighborhood can equate any criminal activity in the area with his establishment. "The bulk of the neighborhood association that has a problem with this is Carver City. Not a single house in Carver City can see our property, and they couldn't if they took a 10-minute walk." Asked about people not reporting crimes, he retorts, "Are we a bad neighbor, or are they? Anytime we've seen a crime, we've reported it."
The allegations that Cigar City is creating a climate for crime have fired up Joe Redner Sr., a multi-millionaire whose run-ins with local government have compelled him to run for office many times over the past decade.
His sense of outrage, which he's used to defend himself in front of the city council regarding adult club zoning laws, has now been transferred to defending his son. In a fit of pique last week, Redner said he was close to filing a lawsuit against the neighborhood association. He hoped to compel those who charge that crimes have occurred to file interrogatories listing specifics of what incidents have happened.
As the sun begins to set outside the Tasting Room on a recent Friday afternoon, the ambience certainly doesn't seem to be one that would breed random rock-throwers. About two dozen people are conversing casually over their beers, some talking about the week that just was, others about the weekend that is now officially underway.
I'm indulging in a Humidor IPA (that's "India Pale Ale" for you non-beer geeks) when I meet a young couple with beers in hand a few hours before they head out to the Improv in Ybor City.
Brian Rose, 22, can't contain his enthusiasm when I ask him what he likes about the two-year old establishment. The community college student from Spring Hill tells me he generally makes the 45-minute trek to this watering hole twice a week, commuting with buddies to check out new brews.
CL beer columnist Sean Nordquist has also taken notice of the brewery, saying they've taken their "amazing beers and spun off variations that are truly innovative and exciting." Part of the brand's cachet is its conscious connection with local culture; Canadian blogger Houlahan thinks it's cool that Cigar City emphasizes the Cuban heritage of Tampa by incorporating it into the names of some of the beers (like Bolita Double Nut Brown Ale).
The soon-to-be 38-year-old Redner is enjoying the success of his brewery, but he's well aware that he sells to a niche audience, saying "98% of the beer-drinking public doesn't drink our beer." Still, Cigar City beer is now available at local Circle K outlets, and he says that soon six-packs will be available in Publix and Sweetbay locations. And the buzz has brought bigger and bigger crowds to the Tasting Room — three to four times the number of people he saw when he opened.
Which may be why traffic is as much a concern for residents as crime.
When asked about the crime allegations, Lincoln Gardens/Carver City Neighborhood Association President Maurice Harvey concedes that the issue is more one of code enforcement than where the police are needed. Residential communities that abut a business district suffer more from constant traffic than do other, quieter parts of town. He said that residents made complaints to the TPD over the years about a Bennigan's on Dale Mabry (since closed) to no avail, laying the groundwork for their current frustrations.
But with a Home Depot located to the immediate east of the brewery, getting onto Spruce Avenue was a problem well before the brewery began production, says resident Bobbie Bagley. "I don't know what the fight is all about."
On one level, the dispute between Cigar City and Lincoln Gardens/Carver City looks like a cultural divide with racial undertones: the Brewery's opponents on the council are all black, representing a black neighborhood, and Redner and much of his clientele are white. Voting with Scott and Stokes against the brewery last month was Gwen Miller, who had a bitter contest for re-election in 2007 for a city council seat against Redner, Sr. During the council's discussion on making the tasting room's conditional license permanent, Miller said, "The neighborhood don't want you there. And I agree with the neighborhood. I always agree with the neighborhood."
But Maurice Harvey says his main issue is with Council allowing waivers of the city's requirements that prevent alcohol sales within 1,000 feet of a residence.
"We're going to waive this 1,000-foot requirement, and there's a house 95 feet across the street," Harvey says. "It's not 800 feet. It's not 995 feet. This is an instance where the business is actually within the neighborhood."
Joey Redner contends there is literally no wet zoning in Tampa that meets the 1,000-foot requirement. But in fact, wet zone requests (especially appeals for increased hours) are often denied in neighborhoods adjacent to entertainment districts, one example being Hyde Park.
And neighborhood opposition can be a powerful thing.
Last week after hearing residents' concerns, Tampa City Council rejected a request by Ybor City retailer Ikea to get a variance to install a 125-foot pole topped by three 600-square-foot sign faces at its store on Adamo Drive. The Council voted unanimously in standing with the neighborhood. Next week, a very divided city council confronts another issue in which a local business finds itself at odds with the sentiments of the community surrounding it.
Redner says if the Council rejects extending the wet zoning of his tasting room, he'll build another one somewhere else in the city.
He might have to start looking soon.
This article appears in Nov 25 – Dec 1, 2010.