PoCo breweries can offer more customers a place to sit down, get a leg up on competition

Port Coquitlam breweries and distilleries can now host up to 75 people in a single tasting room, following council’s decision to amend a zoning bylaw earlier this month.

On Jan. 23, city council unanimously approved a motion to increase the seating capacity at all craft liquor manufacturers in the city from 50 to 75.

“It’s positive for the industry and specifically for the industry in Port Coquitlam,” said Andrea MacIntosh, co-founder of Tinhouse Brewing, which is expecting to apply to the city and province to raise their seating capacity from 50 to 75 within the next month.

The increase will give Port Coquitlam breweries more space during peak seasons, MacIntosh said.

It will also inch the city closer to similar seating restrictions on Port Moody’s popular Brewers Row, where breweries are allowed to seat up to 110 people.

As Tinhouse has a lot of customers from Fremont Village who prefer to walk or take their bikes in nice weather, MacIntosh said she hopes the new rules will make it easier to accommodate folks who prefer active transportation.

“During the busy season, we max out our capacity and have to turn people away,” she said. “The last thing [locals] want to do is get in a car and go to Maple Ridge or Port Moody.”

The paperwork to amend Tinhouse’s seating capacity does not come without a cost, MacIntosh said.

“It is time consuming,” she said. “We’re going to need to engage an architect to have updated drawings and before you know it there goes $5,000.”

But MacIntosh reaffirmed her support for the seating increase, adding that there is plenty of room inside her location to add seats. She said she’s hopeful the extra chairs will be ready by the May long weekend.

“It’s great news,” she said. “It’s making sure parties are talking to each other, and hopefully make it as seamless as possible.”

Since 2016, when Port Coquitlam first allowed liquor manufacturers to open a 25-seat tasting room on-site, seating capacity at breweries and distilleries in the city has steadily grown. In 2018, the city doubled the seating capacity to 50 and relaxed parking limits around those businesses.

Initially, there was concern from some residents who feared that increasing seating capacity at breweries would impact other local businesses, such as pubs, said Coun. Steve Darling.

However, no members of the public attended a hearing to discuss increasing the capacity to 75 on Jan. 23. Additionally, the city has not received a complaint about the impact to other liquor businesses.

“People like choice,” Darling stated. “The pubs are busy, the breweries are busy, and this will only add to it.”

Mayor Brad West did not attend the meeting but later voiced his support for the decision in a press release.

“Our local breweries and distilleries have been popular additions in our community and to our local economy,” West stated. “Increasing seating capacity is a benefit to Port Coquitlam residents, visitors and businesses.”

All of Port Coquitlam’s seven breweries operate as a liquor manufacturer in an industrial zone. Businesses that are looking to expand to 75 seats will have to follow rules under that building code, such as parking and washroom requirements, said Bruce Irvine, the city’s director of development services.

“Our staff would be very open if they brought up a development variance request. . . . Parking would be looked at on a case-by-case basis,” Irvine stated. “It’s not an automatic, it’s something that they could choose to expand or a new business could look to go through.”

One new tasting lounge is opening in Port Coquitlam later this year, the city stated in a press release. West wrote in the same release that he looks forward to the prospect of adding more breweries and distilleries to Port Coquitlam.

“The craft beer scene continues to grow here,” he wrote. “We will continue to work to remove barriers and modernize our bylaws to make it much easier for brewers to be successful.”