By Steven Fletcher
Staff Writer
—
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.
