The Cape Elizabeth Town Council voted Wednesday night in favor of directing the Town Manager to offer the Cookie Jar — a local bakery that has been in operation since the 1950s — a license formalizing four critical parking spaces located in front of their building.
Councilors were divided 4-3 in favor of making this license available to the bakery, with Councilors Timothy Reiniger, Stephanie Anderson, Susan Gillis, and Timothy Thompson supporting the measure and Councilors Jeremy Gabrielson, Caitlin Jordan Harriman, and Penelope Jordan opposing it.
This decision followed a lengthy, and at times heated, discussion among the Councilors regarding not only the decision to offer this license to the Cookie Jar, but also the process by which the final language for the license was brought forward.
As approved Wednesday night, Cookie Jar owners Tom and Donna Piscopo will have the opportunity to accept a license allowing cars to park in front of the bakery despite the fact these spots encroach about two and a half feet into the Town’s right of way.
Although the use of this area for parking had been unchallenged for years, controversy was sparked when the bakery recently applied to create a delivery entrance in the back of their property.
In reviewing their proposed site plan, the Town determined that the parking spaces in front of the bakery were in violation of zoning rules and may need to be removed, as they are too close to the road and block access to the sidewalk.
The Cookie Jar owners have said that without these parking spots, it would not be able to survive as a business.
As of Wednesday night, about 5,000 people had signed an online petition supporting the Cookie Jar and urging the Town to allow the bakery to continue using the area in front of the building for parking.
The effort to “Save the Cookie Jar” was spearheaded by two candidates who ran for the Cape Elizabeth Town Council, David Andrews and David Hughes. Andrews is also responsible for starting the online petition.
[RELATED: Cookie Jar Bakery Fighting to Keep Critical Parking Spaces Amid Zoning Dispute with Cape Elizabeth]
Prior to Wednesday night’s meeting, Town Council Chair Timothy Reiniger raised concerns that staff and the town attorney had previously implied that the Cookie Jar has “no valid claim to front parking, has no grandfathered use, and is therefore solely subject to Planning Board review.”
“The town staff and attorney were, in effect, arguing that the front parking doesn’t exist or is even illegal,” Reiniger said in a statement shared earlier this month.
A 1999 site plan included in Wednesday night’s meeting materials indicates that the parking area in front of the building has been recognized by the town for over twenty years, at least.
According to Reiniger, this plan also showed that the bakery already had a “legally existing, grandfathered right to the front parking” and “expressly noted that striping would be done ‘at the discretion’ of the Cookie Jar.”
About two weeks ago, the Town Council considered two options for formalizing the bakery’s access to these parking spaces, but voted 5-2 in favor of tabling the matter after an hour of public comment and ninety minutes of Council discussion.
During Wednesday night’s meeting, there was some disagreement among the Councilors concerning the process by which the final version of the license was introduced, as the updated language was not made available to the public until the day of the meeting.
Following some confusion and heated debate, however, Councilors read the final language aloud into the record in order to formalize the changes that had been made to the license since last month’s special meeting.
Andrews — a former Town Council candidate and the man responsible for circulating the petition in support of the Cookie Jar — spoke during Wednesday night’s meeting, urging the Council to stand behind the “stores and landmarks that made [Cape Elizabeth] what it is today.”
In an interview with the Maine Wire after the Council voted in support of the license, Andrews said that Cape Elizabeth is “a great town, but it’s going through a lot of growing pains right now,” and is not doing “a good job” of supporting small businesses.
“We started a campaign for the Cookie Jar and got a petition online,” he continued. “And it’s really went well. Tonight, I think we finally reached 5,000 signatures. It went all over the United States. People from California, Washington, and even Alaska that lived in Cape signed that petition.”
“So it’s really exciting,” Andrews said. “After tonight, I think it’s going to pass, and the Cookie Jar will remain the Cookie Jar.”
Mike Friedland of the Lumbery — a small business located in the Cape Elizabeth town center on Route 77 that sells locally sourced wood, garden beds, and tools — also spoke Wednesday in support of the Cookie Jar.
In his remarks, Friedland drew on his own experience as a small business owner in the area who was recently involved in a prolonged battle with the Town over disagreements regarding his site plan.
“I own the Lumbery, another small business in Cape Elizabeth, and I’ve had my own issues with the Town,” Friedland said in an interview with the Maine Wire after the Council’s vote. “So I know what it’s like to go against a town as an individual.”
“I’m here to throw my support behind the Cookie Jar over this non-issue,” Friedland said. “I mean she wanted a driveway on the back of her building, yet somehow we’re talking about the parking in the front of her building.”
“It seems like another case of making much ado about nothing and then causing trouble for a small business,” he added.
[RELATED: Case Dismissed — Cape Town Council Finally Drops Unpopular Lawsuit Against Beloved Small Business]
During the Council discussion, Councilor Jordan asked what this license would accomplish that Planning Board approval of the Cookie Jar’s proposed site plan — which includes the front parking area — would not.
In response, Reiniger explained that the license would serve as an extra layer of protection for the grandfathered parking area, reducing uncertainty for the Cookie Jar’s owners.
Councilor Thompson went on to suggest that offering this license to the Cookie Jar would be a “show of cooperation on [their] part” and demonstrate that the Town is, in practice, supportive of small businesses.
Councilor Anderson explained that, as it is, there is a “perception that things don’t go as easily as they should for small businesses” in Cape Elizabeth. She went on to say that there is no “rational reason” to further delay granting this license to the Cookie Jar when it was entirely in their power to do so as of Wednesday night.
“I don’t understand, and I don’t understand what the controversy is either,” she concluded.
“The license recognizes that the front parking is a legally existing nonconforming use,” Chairman Reiniger said in a statement to the Maine Wire.
“In so doing, the Town Council intended that the license will give the Cookie Jar the further legal ability to push back against the town planner’s attempt to require that the existing front parking be limited or removed as part of any future site plan negotiation,” Reiniger explained.
The Chairman added that “securing access in back” only required the Cookie Jar to obtain a “driveway permit from Public Works without any involvement of the Planning Board.”
“This shouldn’t open the door to a full Site Plan review including the grandfathered front parking,” he added. “How is this happening?”
“The bigger picture is that Cape Elizabeth needs to scale back the regulatory power of the site plan review ordinance and associated enforcement effects,” Reiniger told the Maine Wire. “Recent examples of site plan costs imposed on local small businesses include $300,000 for Cape Integrative Health, $130,000 for the Lumbery (and not including lawsuit defense costs), and over $20,000 for the Cookie Jar.”
Councilor Thompson said in an interview with the Maine Wire after Wednesday’s vote that he was “just happy that [they] were finally able to get it done.”
“I was surprised how difficult it turned out to be,” Thompson continued. “I thought it would be a relatively simple motion on our part to show the longstanding — over sixty years in business — establishment in our little town some support.”
“Probably never should have been an issue blown up to this level, but we were finally able to get it taken care of tonight, so I’m very happy with that,” he concluded.
As of Thursday, the Cookie Jar’s proposed site plan — including the front parking spaces and the proposed driveway — is still pending before the Planning Board.
Following Wednesday night’s vote, the Town Manager will offer the Cookie Jar a license for the front parking area, as approved by a majority of Council members, that is expected to give the business an added layer of security as they move forward with their efforts to establish a rear entrance to the property.
Kind of surprised the owner of a small business opposes small business.
It’s not like CE has a diverse tax base. If they keep going they’ll have only homeowners to take $ from.
Not a lot of background in the article, have to wonder if the three that voted against it are born and raised Mainers. Just curious, as when thing go off the rails it’s often not Mainers that are the problem.