Sunday River Brewing Company

Here's the gist of it if you can't get in to read it:

Facing nearly 60 employees who are again out of work, a co-owner of Sunday River Brewing Co. in Bethel made his case Tuesday that the state reconsider its previous decision not to renew the restaurant’s eating and catering license.

The business owners, brothers Rick and Ron Savage of Bethel, hoped to get a last-minute reprieve from the court before the license expired Dec. 19, but will now have to wait for an appeal decision from the Maine Department of Health and Human Services.


During the appeal hearing Tuesday, Ron Savage argued the state should renew the restaurant’s license because Rick Savage is no longer involved in managing the business, and the restaurant has since been in compliance with health regulations.

Rick Savage, he said, was responsible for previous compliance failures and decisions to operate the business without the proper licenses.

State officials, however, said Tuesday there has been a pattern of noncompliance for the past eight months, and there was no reason to believe it will change. They also said they did not believe issues would be corrected by their issuing a conditional license.

 

Thanks for sharing that. I feel for the employees of the business but, feel nothing but contempt for the Savages. Countless businesses have been able to adjust their business models to remain afloat in the 9+ months our country has been dealing with the pandemic. For whatever their motivation was for not following the guidelines it was still a conscious decision and they will have to deal with the repercussions for those decisions.

 

Rick Savage isn't involved in the business any longer? Suuuure, I believe that. Just like I believe he's going to give the $189,000 from his Go Fund Me to other businesses.

 

If they allow this business to maintain their license, it sends a message to every other business in Maine it is fine to ignore the public health directives and put your employees in danger. Overarching regulation can be difficult to deal with, but in light of this pandemic the regulations are similar to minimum worker protections such as OSHA, child labor laws, etc. Even more so in fact, as you may get one or two casualties at a time with a disregard of OSHA, but a Covid outbreak could sideline like half your staff for weeks at a time or worse. If you can't follow these, you are unfit to run a business.

 

It will be very interesting to see how this plays out.

 

All I know is if their brother Randy was around to run the business, I don't care what rules they break, I'm going there to get a beer.

 

Appeal was denied "effectively shuttering the Bethel restaurant and brewpub indefinitely" according to the article.

https://www.pressherald.com/2020/12...ay-river-brewing-co-s-appeal-of-license-loss/

 

Oh yeaaaah! Free bowls of Slim Jims at the bar.

 

And they don't even care if you wash your hands first!

 

The state just elbow dropped the Savage brothers...brother.

Great picture of who I assume is Rick Savage with an American flag shirt and a mask on under his nose. Says it all right there.

 

Not going to lie, I really enjoyed reading that article!

 

It is common practice in many Asian Countries (Japan, China, Korea, etc) to wear a face mask when sick. It used to throw the American and Euro kids at my boarding school for a trip when they saw one of our Asian students wearing a mask when they had a cold. The Americans assumed that their classmate had ebola or something, when they were just trying to be courteous. I do hope that pandemic will bring this behavior stateside- we would have less flu and colds if sick people helped out their peeps by wearing a mask.