Feb 27, 2013
Garden Center Denied Wine Sales Bid

Local township supervisors said that Woodlawn Garden Center had not gone through the necessary steps to sell wine.

In a 3-0 vote earlier this week, Willistown Board of Supervisors rejected Woodlawn Garden Center’s conditional ude application to sell wine.

MalvernPatch editor Pete Kennedy reports, “Woodlawn’s owners Dave and Rebekah Laughlin Bowser were planning to open a “wine garden” in partnership with Kutztown-based Blair Vineyards.”

Board chairman Bob Lange said, “They did not go through the proper channels. They did not fulfill the requirements that everybody has to do.”

Co-owner Rebekah Laughlin Bowser said she received a Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board letter of approval, but local zoning regulations were still an obstacle. She claims Woodlawn has the “legal right to sell wine from small, local producers as an agricultural product,” writes Kennedy.

Considering to challenge the township’s rejected in court, she said, “[T]he vineyard would be able to sell more wine, Woodlawn would hire more staffers, and the community would have a place to gather.”