Bridgewater, Connecticut’s last dry town, to vote on allowing alcohol sales

Bridgewater First Selectman Curtis Read. Bridgewater First Selectman Curtis Read. Photo: File Photo — County Times Photo: File Photo — County Times Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Bridgewater, Connecticut’s last dry town, to vote on allowing alcohol sales 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

BRIDGEWATER >> Bridgewater’s status as the last dry town in Connecticut, recently challenged by two aspiring restaurant owners, will be up for a referendum vote on Feb. 25, and if passed it will officially end Prohibition in town 81 years after the 18th amendment was repealed.

Registered voters in town will go to the polls from noon to 8 p.m. on the last Tuesday in February to decide whether Bridgewater will stay dry or become partially dry (alcohol served in restaurants).

First Selectman Curtis Read said it was recently determined that the town is not allowed to have a package store per state regulations, as there are fewer than 2,500 residents in Bridgewater.

Regulations state that one package store is allowed per 2,500 residents in a town, so, the vote will not have any effect on Bridgewater’s going completely wet as this has already been determined.

According to Read, since Prohibition was repealed in 1933 by the 21st constitutional amendment, the issue of switching the town’s status from dry to partially dry has never come up. He added that it has been quite a while since there have been any proposals to open up a restaurant in town and there aren’t currently any restaurants open there.

The decision to hold a referendum was determined after Peter and Lian May, owners of the Bridgewater Village Store, and Bill Holland, president of Parker Medical, each proposed opening a restaurant that would serve alcohol. The two proposals were discussed at a meeting in mid-November where the majority of more than 200 residents said they would like to hold a referendum to determine how the issue would be decided.

Greg Bollard, representing Maywood, the Mays’ vineyard, said in a telephone interview that he and the Mays are still exploring the feasibility of converting the former Union Savings bank space in the center of town next to the store they have acquired into a restaurant. He said he wants to see whether they would be able to serve beer or wine before opening their restaurant. When asked, he agreed that they were “not interested unless we could serve alcohol.”

“Both restaurants are dependent upon being able to serve alcohol,” Bollard said. “It’s not only on an economic level, but it’s about being competitive and creating an ambience of what people expect to have in their dining experience.”

Holland, who purchased the vacated Webster Bank in 2012, located at the intersection of routes 67 and 133, is interested in opening a more upscale restaurant than the one the Mays have proposed but said he is exploring other possibilities for the space, which he will determine after the referendum is decided.

“I believe from the reaction at that town meeting a month and a half ago that the overall consensus was most people in Bridgewater would prefer to rescind the current law or referendum that liquor is not allowed,” Holland said. “It’s kind of a wait and see at this point. We would like to see if they think that location is well suited to have an upscale restaurant. [I would think that] neighboring towns would also like to see a nice, upscale restaurant in that area. There are not many of those kind nearby. [I think] the overall consensus is to have a real nice upscale restaurant in that area that would serve Roxbury, New Milford, Washington and, of course, Bridgewater. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”

Holland added that whether he is able to serve alcohol might not be his deciding factor in going forward with opening a restaurant but that “having the capability of serving alcohol along with a nice dinner or lunch does help.”

Read said that having the referendum pass next month would just be a first step in a long process for the aspiring restaurant owners. He said there might then be a question of when those restaurants are allowed to be open or what times they would be allowed to serve alcohol. They would also need to pass the town’s planning and zoning regulations, pass a state health inspection and it will need to be determined how many parking spots they have to allocate for their businesses.

“A lot of people have expressed the idea that it would be nice to have a restaurant in town,” Read said. “This is only the first step—if people don’t like it, they will vote against it.”

Bollard added that “the town’s planning and zoning regulations are not written with the idea of serving alcohol,” so that might be a potential obstacle.

Read and Bollard predicted that if the referendum is passed, the process toward having the restaurants open would probably take about four to six months. For the Mays’ part, Bollard said he would like to see their restaurant open up later this year, depending on “how clumsy this process will be.”

Only a simple majority vote is needed at the referendum to partially lift prohibition in town.