Business Beat: Fresh Food Market Coming, Vineyard Weddings on Pause

This week, Patch reported on a variety of business developments across northern and central Suffolk County. Here are the highlights.

KINGS PARK

Town Moves to Limit Canoes Launching Off Kings Park Bluff

Town won't grant Kings Park businesswoman permit to run canoe business in Kings Park after storm, dredging changes water currents.

SMITHTOWN

St. James Vineyard Postpones Hearing for Event Permit

A St. James vineyard looking to get town approval to host weddings and outdoors events has requested its public hearing be postponed until April. 

Whisper Vineyards, part of Borella's Farm Stand on Edgewood Avenue, asked Smithtown Town Board to reschedule its March 21 public hearing for a special exception permit to host outdoor events to April 25. The farm owners and town are at odds over whether Whisper Vineyard's right to host special events is protected under state agricultural laws. 

"While you are permitted to have weddings on a farm or vineyard, the primary purpose must be to sell wine and must show a profit at selling wine," said Frank DeRubeis, Smithtown's Planning director. "We happen to think what Whisper is proposing has no relationship to this." 

PORT JEFFERSON

Romaine Mulls Selling Tax Receiver's Building

Forecasting a budget shortfall at the end of the 2013 fiscal year, Brookhaven Town Supervisor Ed Romaine is considering selling the former Town Tax Receiver's building, the space that members of the Long Island Music Hall of Fame have touted as their future home on Port Jefferson's Main Street.

In an attempt to raise funds for the cash-strapped town – even "one-offs," or sales that would leave a gap in the following year's revenue totals – Romaine said last week that selling it could reduce the amount the town would have to dip into its reserve funds at the end of 2013.

The announcement comes less than two years after Long Island Music Hall of Fame and Brookhaven Town entered into a 15-year lease agreement on the building, with a five-year extension option. It's an agreement Romaine said he believes LIMHOF may be in default of, for failing to pay rent and possibly failing to insure itself.

HAUPPAUGE

While Smithtown Hot Yoga announced they were moving off of Smithtown's Main Street and to a new local spot within a month in the beginning of March, the destination has changed.

The studio's owners sent out an email to clients this week stating the new home to Smithtown Hot Yoga would be in the former Nesconset branch of the Smithtown Special Library District, located at 148 Smithtown Boulevard.

COMMACK

North Shore Farms to Take Over Empty Waldbaum's

The shelves at the vacant Waldbaum's on Vanderbilt Parkway in Commack won't be empty for long.

North Shore Farms, a family-owned, fresh-food market, plans to take over the property to make way for its fifth location.