Lounge Area at Swan Chocolates Closed For Now

The newly-opened upstairs seating area at Swan Chocolate's is temporarily closed while the restaurant hammers out some planning and permitting issues with the town.

Store co-owner Michael Anderson met on Wednesday afternoon with several town officials including Building Official Fred Kelley, Planning and Zoning Administrator Nancy Larson, Assistant Planner Jeff Morrissette, Health Officer Al Wilson and Fire Marshal John Manuele, who brought to his attention the need to investigate some of the changes made to the upstairs lounge area in accordance with the store's site plan.

"It is temporarily closed to address some issues upstairs," Anderson said of the lounge area.

The issues include an unapproved change of use to the space that was once storage and offices. Anderson said as far as he could tell from the meeting, the biggest issue to resolve is that of parking, as the additional seats upstairs may require more dedicated parking spaces.

"That seems to be the primary issue," Anderson said.

He added that he hopes to get in front of the Planning Board in the next couple of weeks to address their concerns.

A message on Swan Chocolate's Facebook page also announces the temporary closure, which came the same day

"We will be up and running again in no time...meanwhile, lots of seating downstairs where you get to see our smiling staff all the time," the Facebook message says.

Following the meeting Kelley declined to speak to any of the specifics concerns. "At this point in time we're not going to talk about the specifics because we still have some investigating to do," Kelley said."Anything we release will be through Chief (Michael) Currier."

Currier, the town's fire chief, also serves as the head of the building department. Kelley said their findings had not yet been presented to Currier. "We do our own due diligence and our boss issues and proclamations or press releases on the subject," Kelley said.