Meeting w/city & inspectors, what questions to ask?

[schnit]

Hello all!

I've got a few meetings this week with the city planner, building inspector and fire department for my micro distillery. It's a small town of just over 2,000 people and overall they sound pretty eager to get me to establish there.

What I'm trying to do is:

1. Make sure they fully understand what I am bringing to their city.
2. Identify and mitigate any future surprises and costs which could delay or outright prevent me from opening.

I'm looking at a couple properties. One in an older industrial strip pre-cast building. It's got floor drains and is not sprinklered. The other is in a newer, larger pre-cast commercial/warehouse building which I do not yet know if it is drained/sprinklered.

The city has never had any kind of business like this before, and it's overall a very new type of business for the state. This is also a very new venture for me, I don't have any experience with starting a business of this size (except for doing a lot of reading over the last year).

The plan for the property is to have a small sales/merchandise room in the front, and the rear being the DSP.

Any tips or suggestions would be great!

[Scrounge]

When I have approached my county officials for various projects, I find it very helpfull to have a "roughly" accurate description of what I want to do ready for them. Present it and ask them to give their feed back. I've had real good luck with a, hear I am, hears what I want to do, how should I comply, type attitude. Getting the relationship and communications off on a good foot has always been an advantage when something comes up that they are unsure of or I might want to challenge. I like to give them a "your the man" type feeling for that first impression. I've found a "rough" description, best to start with, as language with these guys can change the way they view or catogorize your project. For instance on my distillery, saying I'm using products grown on my land saved me a $4500 fee for filing a conditional use permit, per my zoning. Now I can put that fee off until I'm public with an aged whiskey(atleast a couple years), that obviously wasn't grown in my orchard. Try and let them uncover the obstacles in front of you, so you can figure out best way of navigating them for you, with out closing off options you may have. Can be delicate, but in the end you need to comply with their wishes, so good luck. Just thoughts from my experiences Scrounge

[schnit]

Thanks.

From my first meeting it seemed to be more of a rough "Who are you, what exactly do you want to do? Hire an architect to make sure the space is properly zoned and up to all the codes."

It wasn't great, but it wasn't bad either. The one nice thing was that all the inspectors and the city seemed to agree that they weren't looking to go overboard or above & beyond what the code books say.

[schnit]

One thing I've learned from speaking to a different city was this:

Make sure you let them know 100% of your operational plans because they may have some little regulation which is a deal killer.

A city I spoke with yesterday was very excited at the idea of having a distillery and it sounded like everything could work out-- until I told them I needed to have a "showroom" for selling shirts/glasses/etc. Apparently they only allow manufacturers to have a showroom no larger than 15% of their floorspace and they can only sell items manufactured on the premise.

So glad I found that out during the 10 minute phone call before I devoted days/weeks/months!

[sweetT14]

When you all approached your city and told them your ideas, did you provide any type of monetary numbers, such as the type of revenue you plan to bring in, the taxes they will gain from it, jobs that you created... etc. or did you simply state what you were producing, how you were producing it, and what you needed to do in order to satisfy all requirements?

This is my next step, but I am having trouble with how in depth I need to go or how much information I need to disclose.

[schnit]

When you all approached your city and told them your ideas, did you provide any type of monetary numbers, such

as the type of revenue you plan to bring in, the taxes they will gain from it, jobs that you created... etc. or did you simply state what you were producing, how you were producing it, and what you needed to do in order to satisfy all requirements?

This is my next step, but I am having trouble with how in depth I need to go or how much information I need to disclose.

Not one of the cities I've spoke with have even mentioned any sort of monetary numbers other than normal fees for a new business occupancy/construction. I don't recall being asked about job creation either.

[Salishseaorganicliqueurs]

The more you can laud job creation the better. Cities want businesses that will bring jobs and tourists to the community. They may not ask about it but saying that you will create jobs and bring in tourists will make them want to have you for the most part.

[schnit]

The more you can laud job creation the better. Cities want businesses that will bring jobs and tourists to the community. They may not ask about it but saying that you will create jobs and bring in tourists will make them want to have you for the most part.

I have pressed tourism as one of the big things I'm trying to bring, seems to get the officials listening.