Tea shop can’t serve tea
Amherstburg – The owners of the Loretta Rose Tea Chest fear they won’t be able to steep their 85 varieties of tea when they open in a week at their new location.
The quaint tea shop moved three blocks, to 219 Dalhousie St., in February. The shop is located across the street from the King’s Navy Yard Park, adjacent to a jewelry store and two doors down from an ice cream parlour and Italian restaurant.
Despite the bustling commercial business area, the tea shop’s property is zoned residential-commercial, with restrictions. Business owner Alison Baldwin can operate a gift shop when she opens May 8, but can’t sell brewed tea or the shop’s signature dish of chopped chicken and mango salad.
What they can’t do represents about 75 per cent of the shop’s planned business. Baldwin knew this when she moved onto the property, but had expected the problem to be solved by now with town council’s adoption of its new official plan, which would change the shop’s zoning to commercial and allow its operators to steep away. The town has been working on its official plan for almost two years.
The new zoning doesn’t take effect until the official plan is adopted.
Town planners are meeting with the county Friday to review the plan. Planning co-ordinator Lori Bratt said the plan was delayed for a year while it was being reviewed by the province. Even after it’s adopted, the plan is subject to a 20-day appeal period.
“I am a serious tea (seller),” Baldwin told councillors. She’s going to a tea guru convention in Las Vegas in May.
