Rockport Town Meeting backs beer, wine market sales

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April 10, 2012

Rockport Town Meeting backs beer, wine market sales

By Steven Fletcher Staff Writer The Gloucester Daily Times Tue Apr 10, 2012, 04:23 PM EDT

Rockport residents at their Annual Town Meeting Monday night gave the first green light to issuing a single license for a grocery store to sell beer and wine — a move some residents and officials said would encourage a store to fill the former IGA building.

"You have to have beer and wine because that's the only way it's going to work," said Henry Koski, a Rockport resident and retired employee of Crosby's Market in Manchester.

A small store, like what would fit in the IGA building, would need beer and wine sales to be profitable, he said; without them, it's not possible.

The motion passed with a handful of residents out of the 295 attending opposed Monday night, and if approved by the state, the license will head to a referendum vote. The meeting wrapped up at 10:45 p.m. Monday night and residents approved nearly all of the proposed articles.

Rockport voters passed the town's $23,811,250 budget without change, and approved $1,175,090 in capital improvement expenditures.

Residents shot down only one article — a zoning proposal allowing an additional trailer on a property. They shot the article down because of concerns over setbacks.

We will update this story later today here at gloucestertimes.com.

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Steven Fletcher may be contacted at 1-978-283-7000 x3455, or sfletcher@gloucestertimes.com. Follow him on Twitter at @stevengdt.