Rust City Brewery Closed
 

From a post on r/Hamilton:

"All phone numbers, emails, website, and social media are disconnected. Does anyone know how to actually contact the owners James and Nancy Malcolm? They owe money."

Apparently it closed right after New Years.

Here's the Reddit thread: https://bit.ly/2M6MOXE

Well that wasn't worth losing Homegrown for.

Definitely. I can imagine that the rent charged to Rust City was pretty high.

And they didn't end up brewing. I'm not sure why the city can't get its act together enough to allow brewpubs outside of industrial zones (Merit excepted) like pretty much every other city in North America. Why not have Hamiltonians buying more beer made in Hamilton rather than sending that money outside the city?

What about the brew pubs in Dundas, Fairweather included.

Valentinos in westdale also has its own micro brewery. I wasnt aware that the city wasn’t allowing brewpubs outside of induustrial areas?

Exactly. The city is not disallowing brewpubs. But there may be some resistance to zoning variance requests in some parts of the city.

Another business lost due to over-regulation and a slow city process. This one is tragic, the guy who ran the place was a gem. Spoke old irish, loved to dance and had lots of stories to tell about his enigmatic childhood. Him and his business will be missed.

I have no idea about the specifics of this situation, but excessive city red tape notwithstanding, isn't it important for a proprietor to know what hoops he/she has to jump through and factor that into their business plan?

May or may not have been the reason this failed. This is also a tough line of business no matter where it's tried.

That location has a history of zoning problems. Homegrown used to roast coffee beans late at night, since the steet's zoning does not allow this use.

yet another anti-biz policy from city hall.

It's not an anti-biz policy. Roasting coffee beans at commercial volumes creates odours. This is why they operate in industrial or commercial/industrial areas. Homegrown decided to skirt the restrictions.

Breweries that operate in residential areas, such as Left Field in Toronto, worked hard to get the support of their neighbours during the application process. It's a successful brewery and well-embedded into the neigbourhood.

Did Rust City bother to do anything to advance their cause from day one?

and yet just down the road in Toronto, one of my favourite coffee roasters is located in an alleyway next to residential homes, along with a brewery. Funny how the rest of the world can figure this stuff out, but Hamilton can't.

https://www.google.com/maps/@43.6739153,...QSW334mectgaHZP1IXVcA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

Take a virtual walk down the alley. Literally across the alley from people's backyards. Some cities are open for business and ambitious. Others stagnate. It's not rocket science.

Here's a brewery location in the middle of Kensington Market hood in TO. Yet, somehow King William can't handle one....

https://www.google.com/maps/@43.6564487,...0Wm8f0_cHRiKL_jv0LyDA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

And my personal fave....yes, this street houses a brewery. Look for address #31

https://www.google.com/maps/@43.6580497,...itch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

Pilot Coffee was there before Left Field moved in. Likely also worked hard to win support. I'm just saying that even though the City is often an obstacle to growing business in Hamilton, sometimes it's a convenient target for some who can't be bothered having a strategy.

Yup. Know it well. For a few years it was a pub. The owner launched the plan to become a brewery. It took years. He was bought out. To their credit, the new owners persevered and it finally opened.

for sure a biz owner needs to get it together...but the fact is, it's super hard here. Talk to biz owners. I know a ton of them. Red tape never ends.

I know that Grain N Grit did not have an easy time with the city at all. My question again is why the city can't get their act together and be pro-active and try to capitalize on the trend.

Please share the specifics of this.

Over and over again we hear about the city making things so hard for businesses, but no one shares the details. I understand that the business doesn't want to piss off the bureaucrats, so they keep quiet. But 3rd parties, like you, don't have to. You're anonymous on this forum, so spill it! :)

Here's stuff I've heard from three business owners (one bar, one brewery, one restaurant):

- The city provides incomplete lists of requirements (ie, here are all the inspections you need done, then six months later, "oops, also this one")
- Taking months to do things like zoning verification
- Taking months for permit application
- Telling someone that something was grandfathered and wouldn't be a problem, then changing their mind about it months later
- "We don't have a zoning class for exactly this type of business, so we can't let you open" (this is second-hand information I've heard about both the hostel and one of the board game cafes)

Just finding out what you have to do seems to be a struggle. It's a constant game of

"Here's everything you wanted."
"What about this other thing?"
"I wasn't told about that..."
"Well, it should've been done by now!"

From what I heard, G&G were initially denied and told to apply for rezoning because their building was zoned industrial. The found out that Fairweather down the street who is under the same zoning type, was approved by the city to open a brewery there. G&G went back to the city and basically said, you told these guys they could open a brewery so why can't we? At which point the city let them open.

Edit: This is part of a bigger problem which is lack of consistency when it comes to rules at the city. Another instance was working with the building department. One engineer who has worked on a number of bars/restaurants had one set of rules and documents that he wanted. Another engineer was stricter and wanted other things. Some of those things cost the client more money and time. So if you get stuck with that engineer, you get screwed over a bit and then no one knows that the base rules are when it's applied differently by everyone.

All true. Also, "Oh, you didn't actually have to do all that"